The Circle of Stone: The Darkest Age

by A. J. Lake

  But the dragon was pulling his head back for a second attack. Trymman and Cathbar rushed to pull Elspeth safely down, and they huddled beneath the stone doorways as the flame poured around them.

  ‘How much longer can you hold the protection spell?’ Cluaran asked Eolande.

  She was white and shaking, but she murmured, ‘A while longer. Elspeth wounded it . . . I can shield her for another attempt.’

  ‘I doubt it’ll give her the chance,’ Cathbar said grimly.

  The dragon was coming no closer. He stayed just above the tallest stones now, circling above them; moving only to direct his flame at them. The rain streamed around him, hissing off the ground till they stood surrounded by steam. No fire had spread within the stone circle, but the dragon himself seemed unaffected; his flame inexhaustible.

  ‘He hates the stones,’ Elspeth said suddenly, as another jet of fire streamed around them. ‘Did you notice? He tried to keep from touching them, even before I hit him.’

  The monster soared over them again, turning just past the circle’s edge for another attack. He did avoid the stones, Edmund saw: as he wheeled, his tail lashed aside from the outer ring, with a crack of air. The circle was protecting them, as Eolande had promised. But for how long?

  The dragon beat his wings to hover above them now, swaying his great reptilian head to look down with one burning eye, then the other. There was cunning in those eyes, Edmund thought – and it took all his strength not to duck as the head drew back. Instead, remembering his promise to Elspeth, he stepped in front of her father as the dragon struck.

  The snake-like head whipped between them, spitting a lance of flame directly at Elspeth. Edmund and Trymman both flung themselves towards her, crying out with one voice as the fire burst through Eolande’s shield, furrowing the ground and scarring the rock where Elspeth had been standing.

  But Elspeth was no longer there. As the dragon attacked she had darted forward, around his head, to aim a single stroke at his neck. The creature shrieked again, and shot upwards. The scorching wind from his wings nearly knocked Edmund off his feet, but he stumbled to where Elspeth stood swaying; her clothes blackened, her hair on fire. Trymman had already reached her; he smothered the flames in her hair with his cloak, and the three of them staggered back to the shelter of the stone gateways.

  Eolande was kneeling there, supported by Cluaran, who had his arms around her. She was white to the lips, but the shield seemed to be mended for now: the heat was less here, and no fires burned around them.

  ‘She can’t hold on much longer!’ There was something close to panic in Cluaran’s voice.

  ‘Just a little more,’ Eolande said faintly. ‘They’re coming.’ She could hardly lift her head, but she raised her eyes to the northern sky.

  A wisp of cloud was blowing towards them: a wavering line of white against the remaining blue. It seemed to pulse with a steady rhythm, like the wings of a bird, or...

  ‘The ice dragon!’ Edmund breathed. ‘Jokul-dreki.’

  He could make out her shape, now that he knew what he was seeing: the crested head and the sweeping wings curved back in flight. Beside her, something else flew, darting in furious zigzags: a blue-black speck in comparison, though it must be huge to appear at all at such a distance.

  ‘And Torment.’ Eolande’s voice was hardly more than a breath. ‘I summoned him as well – to help us, this time.’

  Elspeth stared at her, the horror in her face echoing Edmund’s own. ‘Torment – help us? He’s Loki’s creature!’

  ‘No,’ Eolande whispered. ‘I rule him now.’

  She cried out suddenly, as if in pain. The fire dragon had loosed another torrent of flame: it crackled all around them as a thousand tiny sparks breached the shield at once, and winked out a hand’s-span from their heads. Searing heat took the breath from Edmund’s throat. Eolande gasped and slumped against Cluaran, who turned his face to the sky above, his hands gesturing frantically. Rain poured down on all sides – but it turned to steam where the fire dragon hovered. Above them, the great jaws opened again.

  There was a yell behind them, and the monster jolted in the air, his head whipping back. Trymman had produced a slingshot, and was bending over the rubble around a broken slab. ‘Hurt my girl, you brute?’ he shouted as he rummaged for another chunk of stone and let fly again.

  With a roar, the dragon arched his body and flapped his wings to rise a dozen feet higher. Cathbar yelled soundlessly against the thunderclap, and ran for the pile of rubble to hurl a fist-sized lump of rock straight at the dragon’s jaws. The monster writhed his head away, bringing his wings down again – but one yellow eye still glared into the circle, filled with calculation. Edmund looked desperately northwards, but the advancing dragons were still a league away. Hurry! We can’t keep Loki off with stones!

  The glacier dragon was rushing towards them. He could feel her distress, looking through the haze of her vision at the black trail of destruction she followed. Ahead of her was the group of rocks, ringed with fire; and above it, the creature that would burn her land. There was no need to urge her onwards: already she had left the smaller dragon far behind her. A north-wind caught her and sped her towards her goal. Edmund regained his eyes to see Cluaran standing behind him, pulling at the winds with his hands.

  ‘Come to us, come quickly!’ the minstrel whispered. As if in answer, the thunder sounded again, deeper and more rolling than before, and the wind of great wings blew about them – a snow-wind, cutting through the fierce heat.

  The fire dragon had seen her. He wheeled high above them and shot a jet of flame that arched across the sky. Jokul-dreki met it with a breath: seemingly no more than the frosted cloud puffed out on a cold day, but when flame and cloud met there was a hissing and crackling as loud as the thunder, and the fire vanished in a smudge of black smoke which the glacier dragon shouldered aside in her flight. She was closer now; like a white cloud-bank, blotting out the northern horizon. The fire dragon bellowed in fury. This time the flame he spat was a flood that filled the air above them – and Jokul-dreki was there, as massive as the fire dragon himself, meeting the flood head-on.

  It poured over her, hiding her from sight for a long instant. Then it cleared, and the ice dragon shook her wings with a great rush of chill air. A blizzard of tiny drops – water or hail – flew at her enemy.

  In the stone circle below, cool air washed over them like a blessing. Elspeth had left the shelter of the archway to gaze up in awe as the two monsters circled each other. They rose in the air, each seeking advantage, and the thunder of their wings mixed with the roar of the battle. Dark clouds, shot with lightning, rolled around them until both huge figures were hidden from view.

  ‘Is he weakening at all, can you see?’ Edmund demanded, peering up beside his friend.

  Elspeth shook her head doubtfully. ‘I think . . . he may have wounded her . . .’ He could hardly hear her, but following her gaze through the smoke he saw the edge of one enormous white wing, ripped and jagged. With a roar, the fire dragon pressed his advantage, dousing Jokul-dreki in a wave of flame that cast its heat down to the watchers below. Edmund felt his hair crisping. The white dragon faltered in the air.

  And, out of nowhere, Torment was there.

  He appeared like a flung spear, heading straight at the fire dragon’s flank; tiny beside the blazing monster but sharp-edged as a stone. One eye was fractured and dark; one leg hung down, but as the blue-black dragon streaked over his head Edmund tasted nothing but rage, sharp as iron.

  The fire dragon opened his jaws around another burst of flame – and Torment hurtled straight through his wing to cannon into his side. He shot away again, shrieking and covered in flame, but the fire dragon howled, a note that none of them had heard from him, and fell from the air. He almost hit the topmost stones before he pulled himself up, and by that time Torment had rounded: scorched, ragged, but with fury unabated.

  The blue dragon launched himself again at the monster, and again; each time retrea
ting in flames, and each time returning to do more damage. The fire-dragon hovered now, his head whipping from side to side as he tried to swat the little creature that dared to hurt him . . . And Jokul-dreki, rallying, drew back her enormous head for one more blast of ice.

  White clouds billowed over the stone circle, dusting the highest slabs with frost. Both Torment and the fire dragon were lost inside, though in the depths the red flame still raged. Jokul-dreki breathed out once more, and within the cloud of ice the burning monster screamed. Lightning bolts shot from the cloud to earth themselves, spitting and cracking, all around the outer stones. Torment streaked out of it straight upwards, his scales crusted with white. And the cloud cleared to show the fire dragon still hovering, but strangely changed: red-black now, no longer blazing but gleaming like molten stone. He brought his wings down – and shattered, with a noise like worlds colliding.

  Shards of black glass rained down around them, and Edmund yanked Elspeth back under a doorway that trembled in the din. And then there was nothing but wind and rain, and deafening echoes.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  The fire dragon was gone – but Elspeth could not believe it was over.

  Her ears still rang with the monster’s destruction. His fires had gone out, and the heated stones around the circle sizzled in the last of the rain. The ground around them was scorched and scarred by the dragon’s attacks and littered with the gleaming black fragments that had made up his body.

  Eolande sat slumped against a column, while Cluaran bent over her. Cathbar was shaking Trymman’s hand.

  ‘Good work with the stones, man!’ he said.

  ‘It’s Elspeth you should praise,’ her father said, looking at her with pride. Elspeth shook her head.

  I didn’t kill the dragon, she wanted to say. It was Jokul-dreki, and anyway...

  Something was wrong. The crystal sword pulsed faintly in her hand, and she could hear Ioneth’s voice in her head: Not dead . . . not yet...

  The remaining dragons were leaving. Torment flew slow and heavily now; his wings tattered; his lame leg trailing. All the fury seemed to have drained out of him, and Elspeth felt an unwilling stab of pity for the creature as he flapped away.

  Jokul-dreki hovered just above the circle’s edge, her long neck turned so that one vast green eye looked down at Edmund. He stood beneath her, calling out a farewell.

  ‘He’s gone; your land is safe. You can sleep now: I’ll never trouble you again.’

  Elspeth wondered whether the ice dragon could understand him. But Jokul-dreki dipped her massive head as if in acknowledgement; then brought her frayed wings down with one final thunderclap to soar up and away from them.

  ‘Well,’ Cathbar said as the white shape vanished into the north, ‘so Loki is dead. I never thought we’d do it.’

  And there it was again: the sense of wrongness. The stone circle lay quiet now; the rain had stopped and the wind had died. Even the grey clouds that Cluaran had summoned were thinning above them. And yet Elspeth could not shake off a sense of threat.

  ‘We haven’t,’ she said, and the sword thrummed more urgently in her hand. ‘He’s not dead. The dragon was only a part of him . . .’ Ioneth cried out suddenly in her head, and Elspeth reeled around to face the circle’s edge.

  ‘He’s here!’

  Oh, well done.

  It sounded in her head like a bell: the clear, beautiful, hateful voice. And Loki appeared, standing between two of the outer stones.

  You always knew that I would come for you, didn’t you? For you . . . and for Ioneth.

  Flames played around his head and behind his eyes, casting an orange hue on his swirling black cloak. Behind her, Edmund and her father were shouting, but she hardly heard them. Loki’s voice filled her head: Come to me now ... She took a step towards him, and another.

  She could hear Ioneth crying out; feel the tension in her arm. But the blade she held before her was pale now; hardly visible. Elspeth clenched her hand around what should be the hilt of the crystal sword, telling herself it was real. She had struck with it twice, unfelt and almost unseen, and it had wounded the fire dragon. Without giving herself time to think she darted forward, plunging the blade into the breast of the black cloak.

  She felt no resistance; nothing at all. She pulled back for another blow – and found herself held, dragged forward towards the darkness. The cloak billowed out, filling her vision, and there was nothing behind it, nothing but emptiness, and the irresistible voice:

  Come closer.

  ‘Elspeth!’

  Her father’s voice, harsh with terror and anger, broke the spell. Rough hands pulled her backwards. She sprawled on the cindery ground, looking up in confusion: Edmund, his eyes wide with fear; her father and Cathbar each holding her firmly by a shoulder as if she might shake them off and run back to her destroyer. Even Eolande was on her feet, leaning on Cluaran’s arm and looking anxiously down at her.

  ‘He was pulling you outside the stones,’ the Fay woman said. ‘Drawing your mind to him . . . as he drew mine, once. But you’re stronger than I was. Fight him!’

  Elspeth struggled to her feet. The tall figure of Loki still stood at the edge of the stones, flame-ringed. There was a mocking smile on his face, and he extended a hand and beckoned to her.

  Yes: strike at me, Elspeth! Come, fight me!

  She took a step forward, and stopped. ‘No,’ she said, trying to keep her voice steady. ‘I’ll not go to you again. Come inside the circle!’

  Loki’s hand froze mid-gesture. The mocking smile widened, showing white teeth, and fire behind them.

  ‘Why not?’ he said, and this time his voice resounded through the stone circle, making the grey columns vibrate. ‘What have I to fear?’ He began to grow, the cloak whirling about him in a black mist shot with sparks.

  Eolande laid a hand on Elspeth’s arm. ‘Are you ready?’ she murmured.

  No!

  It was Ioneth’s voice, clear and full of panic. Don’t let him come closer, she begged. I can’t do it!

  But we must, Elspeth told her. The spiralling black cloud that was Loki had grown almost as tall as the stones now. It’s time – the only time we’ll have.

  ‘Don’t let her touch him!’

  Cluaran was suddenly beside her, clutching at her hand. His voice was a breathless croak. ‘You can’t – please! You can see she’s too weak.’

  It was Eolande who pulled him back. ‘She must,’ the Fay woman said. ‘They have to fight him now.’

  ‘He’ll swallow them both,’ Cluaran moaned, but he let his hand fall.

  Now. The word sang in Elspeth’s head, and she stepped forward. The raven whirlwind towered above her as she raised her glowing hand.

  I need more strength, Ioneth whispered – and her voice burst from Elspeth’s mouth. ‘Cluaran!’

  Elspeth’s head whipped round. Cluaran was staring at her, his face rigid with shock. Elspeth looked at him in confusion. ‘She says...’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, of course.’ He turned to Eolande. ‘Mother – this is why I was brought here. Forgive me for leaving you.’

  ‘There’s nothing to forgive,’ Eolande said. She embraced him, murmuring words that Elspeth could not hear; then held him by the shoulders, gazing into his face. ‘Go to her, Cluaran,’ she said. ‘Go with my love.’

  Elspeth had listened in growing dread. A vision filled her head: a black-haired girl fading to nothing as the sword took her life, and the young man on his knees beside her, begging to take her place.

  The face that Cluaran turned to her was suddenly that of a boy, transfigured with hope and fear. ‘What do I do?’ he asked her.

  She opened her mouth, not knowing what to say, and the voice of Ioneth spoke through her.

  ‘Take my hand.’

  His clasp was warm and dry, though shaking a little in hers, and the faint light of the sword lay along his arm, seeming to merge with the skin. It grew brighter as she watched, spreading like glowing mist. The waverin
g light wrapped around Cluaran, and she began to lose sight of him. His eyes widened, and she knew it was not her face that he saw.

  My love, Ioneth whispered inside her head.

  The brilliance filled her eyes now. The hand clasping hers shuddered – and then she was gripping the hilt of a sword, solid and familiar as if she had held it all her life. A thrill of power shot up her arm, and the floating light merged into a single line of white fire.

  The crystal sword had returned.

  Elspeth began to shake. The blade in her right hand dazzled her, blazing as it had when it had first become a part of her, months ago. But Cluaran was gone – lost as though he had never been. Where he had stood before her there was nothing but the blackened ground. For a moment, she was shot through with guilt and horror.

  ‘He’s not gone; not truly.’ Eolande was beside her. The Fay woman’s face was running with tears, but her voice was urgent. ‘You must use what he has given you. Quickly!’

  A pillar of flame blazed between the stones, higher than the tallest of them, staining them with blood-red light. Trymman, Cathbar and Edmund darted around it, hurling rubble at it, retreating, then throwing again. The thing was man-shaped, Elspeth realised: a giant made of fire as the dragon had been, its feet burning the ground where it walked, its fingertips shooting flames. The hurled stones made ripples in its surface; each spot became pale and insubstantial for a moment, halting the giant’s progress before the flame filled it again. But it moved inexorably forward, towards Elspeth. It turned white-blazing eyes on her and opened a mouth as black and cavernous as the dragon’s jaws, spitting a torrent of fire.

  Don’t be afraid. Ioneth’s voice spoke in her head, clearer and stronger than Elspeth had ever heard it. You wounded the dragon when I was no more than a light.

  She wasn’t afraid. The sword was firm in her hand, its strength pulsing through her. And the words she had heard were no longer from a single voice: there were two, intertwining like parts of a song, and both as familiar to her as her own thoughts. Then she was running forward, the sword blazing like lightning, to slash at the legs of the burning giant.