The Bitter Twins

by Jen Williams

  Yet the answering murmur of his heart told the truth; without Bern, he was alone. There was joy in the moment, and it was something they both needed.

  The next morning they stood together in the war-beast’s courtyard as Eri and Vintage took them through the armour they had acquired from the thief Tyranny O’Keefe. It was difficult to concentrate. To Aldasair the world looked very different in this new daylight. Normal things, like the water glinting in the ridges in an ornate paving stone, or the spider’s web tucked secretly under the awning, looked edged in gold, and the air seemed especially clear and sweet. His breakfast that morning had been a simple bread roll with a quick smear of butter, but he had sat looking at it for some time. Did it taste better? He thought it did. And his mind felt clearer too, sharper, as though he had opened a pair of eyes he didn’t know he had. He forced himself to look away from the spiderweb to the piece of armour that Vintage was holding up.

  ‘Do you see the claws on the end? They are serrated.’ The item appeared to be some sort of metal gauntlet, made from pieces of metal that slotted together to allow for great movement, and there were lethal-looking talons on the end. Vintage twisted the gauntlet a certain way, and the talons slid away into some hidden recess. ‘It’s outrageously clever, isn’t it? I had no idea the Eborans were so fiendish with their armour. In any case, I believe this could be just the job for Jessen, if she is comfortable with wearing something so heavy.’

  Aldasair looked to the great black wolf, who was sitting with her tail neatly curled around her forepaws.

  ‘I think I should like it very much,’ she said, her amber eyes shining. ‘I have often looked at brother Sharrik’s talons and admired them.’

  Next to her, the griffin puffed out his chest. Helcate was with them too, and the little war-beast had grown significantly even during their short trip. He sat close to the other war-beasts, still dwarfed by them but clearly glad to see his siblings.

  ‘What about me?’ boomed Sharrik. ‘I was promised a bejewelled harness. Fit for my glory!’

  ‘Yes, well.’ Vintage was still limping, the crutch wedged firmly under her armpit, yet she moved around swiftly enough. ‘Come and look at this then, you beautiful brute.’

  As she took Sharrik to the far side of the courtyard to look at some enormous confection of leather and silver, Eri approached them with an item Aldasair did not recognise.

  ‘I thought this could be useful for you, Aldasair,’ he said. His voice was still quiet and he had difficulty meeting his eye, but there was some new confidence in the way he stood, in the way he’d pushed his long, ash-blond hair from his face. ‘It’s too heavy for me yet, and Bern has his axes, Tormalin has his sword, and Noon has . . . well, Noon has herself. Perhaps you would find it useful?’

  It looked to Aldasair like the quiver for a bow and arrow, yet much larger, and reinforced with steel rivets. Inside it were around fifteen narrow metal shafts, each sharpened to a lethal point. Carefully, he took one from the quiver and turned it over in his hands. It was indeed very heavy.

  ‘Vintage says they’ve been weighted to be thrown, or dropped,’ said Eri brightly. ‘There were loads of them in the cache Tyranny left behind, but I found the best ones and cleaned them up for you. Agney, the Finneral blacksmith, showed me how to sharpen them too.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Do you think you can use them?’

  ‘I think they will be perfect.’ Aldasair slid the bolt back into the quiver. As functional as it was, someone had seen fit to cover it with an enamelled scene depicting dragons frolicking, each as green as an emerald, and there was a thick leather strap allowing the wearer to fit it comfortably across the shoulders or the chest. ‘Thank you, Eri.’

  The boy beamed with pleasure, and Aldasair felt a surge of affection for him. When they had first brought Eri here, he had reminded him uncomfortably of himself – of the time he’d spent lost in the corridors of the palace while everything died around him. To see him brighter, even in the face of oncoming disaster, was a reminder that things could get better.

  As Eri wandered back to help Vintage wrestle a helmet lined with sharpened tusks over Jessen’s snout, he felt Bern touch his shoulder gently.

  ‘I have something for you too.’

  He reached to his belt and slid one of his axes, the Bitter Twins, from its strap. When he held it out to Aldasair, he stood looking at it, wondering if perhaps Bern meant to use it to cut something – a lock of hair, perhaps?

  ‘I can’t use both of them anymore,’ said Bern, a touch sadly. ‘The bloody crystal that creature wedged in my hand means I can’t grip it properly. So I’d like you to have it –’ he paused and cleared his throat, his cheeks turning faintly pink – ‘my love.’

  ‘Your axe? I can’t take that. The Bitter Twins are your weapon.’

  Bern smiled, and any sadness there might have been vanished. ‘You will make better use of it than me now, and I know you have the strength in those arms to use it.’ He grinned then, suddenly and wolfishly. ‘There’s no one else I would want to take it.’

  Hesitantly, Aldasair took hold of the haft and lifted the axe, thinking of how he had used it without thinking at the Broken Field. Like the lethal bolts, it was heavy, but it felt right in his hand, like he had been waiting to hold it for a long time – or as though it had been waiting for him, somehow.

  ‘The queen will regret following us,’ he said.

  53

  My dearest Marin,

  This is my fifth letter to you, and I still have received no reply. I am choosing to believe that you are too busy, or the birds are getting lost, or perhaps the messengers have decided that they have better things to do. If you are busy, I hope it is a safe kind of busy, and not the sort of busy that involves you riding off into the Wild or following a Behemoth to see where it goes. Yes, I am aware this is hugely hypocritical of me. I imagine you rolling your eyes at this letter and it lifts my spirits.

  And that is sorely needed. I write this in the few quiet moments I have while friends of mine prepare for a battle they are almost certain to lose. They are good, brave people, Marin, and I dearly hope there is a chance you will meet them when Sarn is a little less lively. As for myself, I intend to accompany them, to do whatever I can.

  The world looks ever so dark today, Marin. Do your aunt a favour and keep your own light shining.

  Extract from the private letters of Master Marin de Grazon

  The journey back was not eventful, so they did not break their necks to get home. It was a thought that would haunt Noon’s dreams for some time afterwards – if they had rushed, if they had urged their war-beasts to fly through the night, would that have changed anything? If they had arrived earlier, could they have avoided what was to come? In the cold light of a bitter morning, she thought not, but when the sun sank and the lamps burned into the small hours, the question was like a stain she could not quite wash out.

  It was late afternoon when they reached the stretch of land that she recognised as Ebora; there were the thick, dark forests, lying hot and green under a spring sun that was building in ferocity, and the intricate roads and ruins of the sprawling city. There was Ygseril, a cloudburst of branches above the palace, new leaves glinting and shifting – he was alive, yet inert, silent to them all. Noon raised her eyes to the horizon, taking in the familiar sweep of the Bloodless Mountains, wintery and harsh despite the warmth of the sun, and spotted something that should not be there. Her stomach dropped, and beneath her Vostok jerked with surprise – the dragon had spotted it too.

  ‘Tor! The corpse moon, it’s here!’

  ‘What?’ Tor sat up in his harness. He had been sullen and moody during the journey, spending the evenings staring at nothing, or glumly cleaning his sword. She saw shock settle over his face as he saw it – an enormous, bulbous green and black and silver mass, hanging in the sky just in front of the mountains. It looked obscene, the sunlight glistening off of its oily flanks.

  ‘Fuck.’

  ‘Vostok, is Ygseril . .
.?’ The dragon shivered, already beating her wings faster.

  ‘He lives,’ she replied tersely. ‘But we are in trouble.’

  The palace was coming up below them. Immediately, Noon could see all was not well. A huge part of the garden forest was gone, burnt to miserable black stumps, and she could see no tents or caravans on the wide green lawn. There was only one person moving down there, a busy figure on the flat white stones, and as they grew nearer she turned her face up to the sky. Vintage waved frantically at them, her normally cheerful face pinched and grim.

  ‘Tor, we have to land! Follow me.’

  Vostok took them down with precision, and only as Noon stumbled out of the harness did she see Fulcor, the great white bat, crouched on the marble paving slabs, her black eyes glinting with curiosity. Vintage had been putting the harness on her, and she wore her crossbow at her belt.

  ‘Could you cut it any finer, do you think?’ said Vintage, as Noon hurried over to embrace her. ‘Perhaps you’d like to come back in an hour or so, just to make sure it’s a properly dramatic entrance.’

  ‘What’s happening?’ demanded Tor. ‘Where are my cousin and the other war-beasts?’

  ‘Bern and Aldasair are already up there,’ Vintage extracted herself from Noon and hobbled back to the bat, where she finished busily tugging straps into place. She continued to speak without looking at them. ‘And Eri and Helcate, roots damn us all. I couldn’t stop them. The boy insisted it was his place to fight, that it was what they were meant to do. I don’t care if he’s four times my age, he’s a child!’ She shot a look at them over her shoulder. ‘If Vostok and Kirune are carrying anything heavy that isn’t a weapon, ditch it now. You will need to be fast.’

  Tor nodded once and returned to Kirune, swiftly unpacking their leftover supplies, packs of clothes, and the heavy bag containing the amber tablets.

  ‘Vintage, what is Fulcor doing here? You can’t mean to be going up there?’ Noon glanced at the older woman’s ankle – she was still limping. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Stop asking pointless questions. We have to lead the corpse moon away from Ebora, if we can. Most of Bern’s people are in the palace – they have chosen to defend Ygseril, should it come to that – and I’ve sent most of the others out to hide in the forests, or to run as far as they can, but if the Jure’lia take Ebora now none of them will live anyway. We have to get up there, and we have to fight. Are you listening?’

  ‘I . . . yes.’ Noon glanced at Tor, who was already climbing back onto Kirune’s back, his sword the only thing he was carrying with him. ‘But what happened here? Why has the corpse moon come now?’

  ‘There is no time for that,’ said Vostok. The white dragon was looking at the mountains, her long neck outstretched as though she longed to be there already. ‘I can see Sharrik and Jessen. They fight fiercely, but they are outnumbered. We must go to them, bright weapon.’

  The surge of Vostok’s courage was like a dash of cold water to the face. Noon hurried to her side, and began to strap herself back into the harness. Already, her chest felt tight with the powerful need to fight – enemies were on their territory, and they must be forced back at all costs. Vintage had, with some difficulty, wriggled her way onto Fulcor’s back, and she was checking her crossbow.

  ‘Oh, by the way,’ she said, fiddling with the row of bolts sown into her belt. ‘The Jure’lia have a dragon now, apparently.’

  ‘Of course they bloody do,’ said Tor.

  ‘How?’ asked Vostok sharply.

  From the back of the bat, Vintage pressed her lips together, and glanced uneasily at Tor. ‘It flies with the Lady Hestillion, so we must assume . . .’

  ‘She has her own war-beast?’ Tor twisted around in his harness to look directly at Vintage. ‘The pod she took with her has hatched, then?’

  ‘Vostok was right, we don’t have time for this.’ Noon leaned forward and pressed her hand to the dragon’s warm scales. No other dragon could be as fine or as lethal as you. ‘If they have a dragon, we can assume it won’t like us much. Let’s go – Aldasair and Bern will need our help.’

  Once they were up in the air, both Kirune and Vostok put their heads down and produced a burst of speed that caused Noon and Tor to press themselves flat to the harness. Fulcor, as fast as she was, began to fall behind.

  ‘Go ahead!’ called Vintage. ‘I will be right behind you.’

  Already, the corpse moon loomed larger. It hung over the very outskirts of Ebora, where the foothills of the mountains met the crumbling wall that ran along the southernmost boundary of Eboran lands. Aldasair and Bern were there, and seeing them, Noon felt a surge of emotion wash through her that she couldn’t quite identify – she didn’t even know if it came from her or Vostok. Both the warriors and their mounts wore armour; glittering, spectacular armour unlike anything Noon had ever seen. Sharrik in particular looked like a flying fortress; he wore a helmet that glinted silver and gold in the sun, with a pair of jewelled horns bursting forth from the forehead. The helmet left his beak free, and she saw him roar, catching a glimpse of his sharp purple tongue. The harness he wore was covered with flat metal plates, interlocking like the scales of a fish, and Bern wore a matching chest plate – together they were a scene straight out of a storybook, one of the more fanciful books of tales Noon’s mother had saved for bedtime reading.

  Jessen’s armour was less extensive, and immediately Noon saw how this was sensible – Sharrik was a hammer, heavy and strong, but Jessen was a thin-bladed knife, fast and precise. The great wolf’s armour was something like a wiry silver vest covered with smaller interlocking silver plates – these ones were round, like coins, and the centre of each sported a dot of white enamel. The vest was clearly very flexible, reaching up and around the wolf’s throat without impeding her movements, and on each leg she wore a gauntlet rimmed with claws like daggers. Aldasair too looked like a knight from an ancient tale, his white enamelled armour catching the sun and shining like it was ablaze. As she watched, he pulled a long, thin object like a miniature spear from a quiver at his hip and threw it, overarm. The spear soared through the air and sank into the chest of a grey humanoid figure with huge bony wings.

  ‘Fire and blood, what is that?’

  There were loads of the flying men, and they were strange half-formed things. With no faces to speak of and no hair they looked like they had been patted together from pieces of gangrenous dough, but they flew around the Behemoth like flies around a pile of dung, and lunged periodically at Bern and Aldasair, who were struggling to reach the corpse moon at all. Helcate appeared, previously hidden behind the bigger war-beasts, and Noon found herself grinning at the sight of him despite their dire situation. The little war-beast had grown, and was using his wings with confidence, his blue eyes bright and sharp. On his back Eri looked truly alive, his whole being bright with the joy of battle, his mouth open and shouting his triumph. They also wore armour, although it was less extensive and looked more decorative than the others: scarlet gems the size of fists glinting from the sides of Helcate’s bronze harness, while Eri’s mail shirt looked as bright as blood with its red enamel. As Noon watched, Helcate opened his mouth, the muscles in his long neck clenching, and he spat something, too swiftly for her to make out. Whatever it was, it landed on the nearest flying man and the thing sizzled, like fat in a hot pan, and dropped towards the distant ground.

  Noon heard a shouted oath from Tor, and turned to see him staring at the little war-beast in shock.

  ‘No time for bafflement, bright weapon,’ said Vostok. ‘We must join the fray.’

  ‘Let’s do it.’

  Vostok dived into the thick of the action, parting the flying creatures with a stream of violet fire. Noon took a little of the dragon’s life energy and threw a stream of winnowfire like a whip at those that had failed to get out of the way. From above and behind them, she heard shouts of greeting from the war-beasts and their riders. For a moment, her vision was filled with thick grey fur and then Kirune was up
and past them, barrelling into a flying creature that had been falling on them from above. He bent his head to the thing’s neck and tore its head away from its body, letting the rest of it drop.

  ‘What’s the plan?’ shouted Tor. He was half standing in the harness, his sword in hand. ‘Anything we should know?’

  ‘We need to drive it back, away from Ygseril,’ Aldasair shouted back. ‘And it’s very good to see you!’

  Vostok swept up, her powerful wings lifting them easily away from the main milieu. Other creatures were scuttling over the surface of the corpse moon, things with too many black legs and other things that looked like larger versions of the burrowers, some as large as dogs. Noon grimaced, wondering if these were new, or if they simply hadn’t seen them before.

  ‘New abominations,’ said Vostok. ‘Something has changed within the old enemy.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Noon, leaning forward. ‘I’m quite happy to burn anything it vomits up.’

  The dragon folded her wings and they dropped towards the oily surface of the Behemoth. Noon reached out her arm and just before they came into contact with it, she released a rolling sheet of green flame at the burrowers and mothers closest to them. They popped and sizzled and curled up on themselves, and she laughed aloud.

  ‘Dragon soul, witch-fire,’ Vostok said. ‘If we had known then . . .’

  Noon opened her mouth to ask what she meant, but Sharrik and Jessen raced past them, flying in tandem. A particularly large burrower had leapt from the corpse moon onto Helcate, and Eri was gamely trying to fight the creature off with a short sword. Sharrik cinched the thing between his claws and flung it away from the smaller war-beast, and Jessen caught it between her jaws, savaging it.

  A flicker at the edge of Noon’s vision let her know that Vintage had arrived on the back of Fulcor. The big white bat was hanging at the edge of the aerial battle, and Noon felt a stab of anxiety – they couldn’t possibly watch over Vintage at all times, and the older woman would be in enormous danger – but as she watched the scholar lifted her crossbow and neatly took down one of the flying men that were getting too close. Catching Noon’s eye, she raised the weapon in a salute, then seemed to stiffen in the saddle, her gaze fixed on something behind Noon. She turned in the saddle, just as Bern began shouting, ‘Watch out! Get back!’