The Third God

by Ricardo Pinto

  He looked at Fern, whose father an Ichorian had wounded fatally, whose brother and uncle the same Ichorian had killed. ‘I’m not the only one here who has seen them kill.’

  He felt their doubt and saw it on Poppy’s face; it was there too beneath Fern’s coldness. A sound behind him made him jerk his mask up. He paused before it had wholly covered his face, feeling the heavy footfalls of Masters approaching, hearing the scrape of Aurum’s staff. He let his hand fall, the mask hanging from his fingers, and turned.

  ‘Horns and fire,’ cried Aurum. Carnelian sensed his Quya making the Lepers falter. ‘Is it possible, boy, that you have not yet learned the lesson of the baran?’

  Carnelian watched the old Master half turning, his hands rising to give the commands. He remembered how on the baran they had chopped gestures and how, in obedience to those, his guardsmen had massacred the crew.

  ‘We’re no longer on the ship,’ Carnelian said, deliberately, in Vulgate. ‘And you’re here with none who’ll heed your murderous commands.’ Defiance was sweet.

  Aurum turned to Osidian. ‘Celestial, these creatures must all be put to death.’

  Osidian’s mask turned to Carnelian, who could see a glitter of eyes moving behind its slits. His hand rose, making a smile gesture that, though it carried appeasement, was also shaded by a dismissive amusement. ‘It would seem, my Lord Aurum, impolitic for me to destroy the commanders of my auxiliaries.’ He rolled an elegant hand. ‘Let us say that these creatures are become members of House Suth.’

  Confident his gambit had paid off, Carnelian glanced round. Fern was considering what he had said to them and, Carnelian was sure, Lily and the Lepers were too. The decision was theirs to make. Their enemy was there unarmed among them. They could take him now and return to their valleys and flee the coming battle. Fearing either outcome, he waited, not willing them to decide one way or the other.

  It was Lily who first gave him a nod. Others followed. He turned last of all to Fern. As their eyes met, his heart gave a lurch. He dared not name what had passed between them lest he should destroy it. Fern broke the contact with a nod.

  Carnelian turned back to the Masters. Their gold faces seemed to float disembodied above their black cloaks. ‘My Lords had best go now down to the camp. It will take my Lord Aurum a while to negotiate the ramps and we must make haste lest our enemy be upon us before we have had time to prepare our battleline.’

  Osidian gave him a nod, then advanced on the Lepers, who moved from his path. Aurum was forced to follow him, each punt of his staff gouging the floor. Carnelian watched them until they had disappeared down into the darkness of the stables. He wondered how Aurum, already discomfited, would react to the Oracles and their sacrament.

  Lily speaking made him turn to her. ‘Our enemy seems weakened.’

  Carnelian was still savouring his victory over Aurum. ‘Don’t worry; he won’t die before we give him to you. We Masters maintain a fierce grip on life.’ Almost he added: and we are made of finer clay. That made him smile and ignited in him a fierce desire to destroy Jaspar. At that moment he felt he had the power to tear down the Commonwealth. Then he saw the people standing before him and his ardour cooled. A large part of the price for victory would most likely be the spilling of their blood. ‘You will fight then?’

  They answered him with a cry of assent that made the portcullis counterweights shiver. He felt moved and covered this by going over again the part they would play in the coming battle. When he was sure they understood, he told them they must go and make their people ready. ‘While I’ll do the same for my dragon commanders.’

  ‘I’ll go with Fern,’ said Poppy.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Carnelian said, suspicious.

  ‘I can’t let Krow go into battle without saying goodbye to him.’

  The frown Fern gave her showed he was sharing Carnelian’s misgivings. ‘You’re not going to fight in the battle.’ Carnelian pointed up into the tower. ‘You can watch it from up there.’

  Poppy’s face hardened. ‘What if Krow should die?’

  Fern gripped her shoulder. ‘I’ll take care of him for you.’

  Poppy wriggled free and glared at them both. ‘I’m not going to stay here when you’re all out there. Besides, what makes you both think this tower’s safe?’

  Carnelian and Fern glanced at each other. She had a point. Carnelian thought about it. He hung his head. ‘You can come with me.’

  Poppy beamed. ‘In the dragon?’

  Carnelian looked to make sure Fern approved and then nodded heavily. The Lepers were already descending the ramp. Fern gave Carnelian a look he could not read. ‘Take care.’

  ‘Don’t forget you promised to look after Krow,’ Poppy said.

  ‘I won’t,’ said Fern. He looked at Carnelian. ‘Make sure we win.’

  Carnelian gave a nod, his heart aching. As he and Poppy watched Fern disappear into the darkness, a nausea crept over him that he feared was a premonition of Fern’s death. Poppy took hold of two of his fingers and squeezed them. ‘Don’t worry. While Fern’s taking care of Krow, Krow will be taking care of Fern.’

  Sitting in his command chair, Carnelian saw in front of him a long file of dragons trampling their shadows as they lumbered into the west. A cohort of his own Qunoth dragons was immediately in front. Beyond them Aurum’s with the old Master and Osidian on Heart-of-Thunder at their head. Carnelian was confident the rest of his dragons were following him in single file. All along the starboard edge of their march the dragons were unfurling a vast red banner of dust that was drifting away into the north-east. Not only was it hiding the road, but everything that lay in that direction. More disconcertingly, it was proclaiming their position to Jaspar. Earlier, Carnelian had bidden his Lefthand to get their lookout to relate what he could see of the road. Word had returned that, even perched aloft, he could see nothing at all through the dust. This was exactly what Osidian had hoped for. If their lookouts could not see the road, then Jaspar should not be able to see their banner masts. Nevertheless, none of this stopped Carnelian feeling nervous that, at that very moment, the Ichorian could be bearing down upon their flank unseen. He fretted again over whether his commanders had fully understood his explanation of Osidian’s tactics. He was also beset by doubt whether, when it came to it, they would follow him into a battle against the feared double legion of the Bloodguard.

  He glanced round. Poppy was there sitting against the bone wall. The homunculus was hunched beside her, his head sunk between his knees so that he appeared to be nothing more than a boy. It was Poppy who had asked to have the little man along. Red dust in the folds of her Leper shrouds looked like dried blood. More carpeted the deck and formed drifts in the angles of the cabin. Had he been foolish to let Poppy come with him? Was she really safer here than back in the watch-tower?

  To port, the cool blues of the morning were only lightly wisped with the dust the riders were churning up. The Marula rode nearest to the dragon line, two abreast. Beyond, ranks of auxiliaries faded into their own dust, their jiggling mass grotesquely animated by long shadows. He had divided the Lepers into two groups. The first under Lily rode up at the front of their column. The second under Fern brought up the rear. In the camp he had been glad Osidian’s wish to have the auxiliaries fight next to the dragons had banished the Lepers to the extreme flanks. Now he was not so sure. Though the intention was to advance with both flanks re-fused so that they would be as far as they could be from the Ichorians’ fire, what if Jaspar attempted to outflank them? Then the Lepers would bear the brunt of the fighting on the ground.

  He gazed at the rump of the dragon in front. Each of its footfalls gouged up a red spiral of dust. Several of these intertwined, feathering diagonally up to feed the clouds rolling towards Jaspar. At least, Carnelian thought, by placing the aquar to port both they and their riders were being spared that choking fog.

  At last Osidian veered them north-west. Carnelian gave the order to turn an eighth to starboard, then watched
as the auxiliaries matched the new course and the hazy shadow of the duststorm oozed out over them. Then he gazed out to starboard. Though he knew they must now be marching parallel to the road, he could see no hint of it through the murk.

  A muffled, deep-throated cry sounded from far ahead. This was taken up by another trumpet and another, in a cascading sequence that grew louder as it sped towards them. This was one of several prearranged signals. Even before it reached them, Carnelian gave an order to his Righthand. The man muttered into his voice fork and, a moment later, the cabin shook as a vast, nasal groan was released by Earth-is-Strong’s trumpets. A movement in the corner of Carnelian’s eye made him turn to see Poppy startled. He considered saying something to reassure her but in the end he stayed silent. He did not wish to diminish the martial atmosphere of the deck. Worse, he feared that one kind word might encourage Poppy to some action. It was better she should sit there quietly.

  The trumpet blasts were fading away to the rear of the march. Carnelian gave the command that made Earth-is-Strong turn to starboard even as she slowed to a halt. He watched with some relief as the neighbouring dragons turned too. He had deliberately held his dragon back so that the rest of the line would advance a little in front of him. Leaning on the arm of his chair, he peered to port, down the forming line of dragons. At last he saw what he was looking for: a dragon half lost in the dust it was raising as it approached. It was Heart-of-Thunder coming to join him in the centre. He watched the monster slow, then turn, inserting himself into the line six dragons away: the six that would form the horns of the crescent.

  Gazing to starboard, Carnelian watched a seethe of dust undulating down the line as his auxiliaries rode off to form the right wing. He screwed his eyes up, but could see no clear evidence of Fern’s Lepers at its very end. Grimly, he gave a command, and slowly, with the cabin rocking from side to side, Earth-is-Strong edged into her place in the line. On either side, the dark shapes of Marula were pouring forwards to form their skirmish screen in front. The breeze was carrying the red dust wall away from them, sinking as it thinned. The glare of the sun was beginning to coalesce into a patch, then into an orb so bright he had to lower his head so that the slits of his mask would shield his eyes. His heart was pounding. At any moment he might see a wall of dragons thundering towards them. From violet, the north-eastern sky was turning blue. At last he realized he could see all the way across the plain to the horizon. No sign of movement, of the road, of anything.

  He became aware of the tower settling around him, creaking, releasing tension. He heard and felt the tremor of Earth-is-Strong emitting a snort. Furtive sounds rose from the crew in the lower decks. He was conscious of his breath as it passed in and out through the nostrils of his mask. He leaned forward. In the far distance a long flat sliver of movement. A twitching, shifting strip that could have been the froth of a blood sea breaking its waves upon a shore.

  A lurid twilight filled the cabin. Carnelian felt they had been pushing through its red fog for days. He had lost all sense of time. Anxiety that at any moment an enemy dragon would emerge from the murk had left him weary and irritable. Though he feared it, he also longed for the battle to begin.

  Osidian had waited while the Ichorian formed its battleline. The froth of dust had widened along the horizon. That it thinned to the edges suggested Jaspar had matched his battleline to theirs as Osidian had prophesied. Dragon was matched to dragon; aquar to aquar. Why not? Jaspar knew he had the greater strength.

  The mirror signal Osidian had sent flickering towards either flank consisted of a single command. ‘Advance’. The dragons had lurched forward stirring red surf into life at their feet. Soon this had rolled over the cordon of Marula stretched across their front. Higher and higher it had boiled, tendrils smoking up to grip the blue morning. Soon, the red, rolling wall had risen to quench it altogether.

  Carnelian leaned forward in his command chair, peering into the rolling cloud they were driving before them. He was sure he had seen something, but it was probably just another phantasm. He glimpsed three small dark solid things there on the ground. Marula labouring like ants through the sandstorm. It gave him stale satisfaction that this dust would be striking directly into the faces and towers of Jaspar’s host.

  ‘The signal, Master.’

  Carnelian jumped, having almost forgotten his Lefthand was there. Instantly he looked to port, where the nearest dragon seemed a ship in a fog. A tiny glow like a marsh light upon its tower roof was moving from side to side. This was it. He gave the command for Earth-is-Strong to slow. As the cabin began to rock, he commanded her pipes lit. The dragon to starboard was keeping pace with her. Hopefully this was happening all the way down the line. To port, he saw the dragon there pulling ahead. The other five were surely advancing in line with it. He turned Earth-is-Strong an eighth to port. Slowly they began shearing in behind the six. Carnelian peered into the murk counting the shadows while at the same time looking out for Osidian. The horns and beak were the first to emerge, like a floating crucifixion. Then the massive bulk of Heart-of-Thunder with her tower solidified in the gloom.

  ‘An eighth to starboard.’

  Earth-is-Strong responded, wheeling away from Heart-of-Thunder though still closing, until the two monsters were lumbering forward side by side. Carnelian glanced over to Heart-of-Thunder’s tower, but it was too murky to see Osidian. As they picked up speed Carnelian could make out ahead the six dividing into two cohorts with a gap between them. Carefully, he and Osidian guided their dragons into this gap until they were moving in line abreast with the six. Carnelian turned to look back, but could see nothing clearly. It was the intensifying reek of naphtha that confirmed that the rest of their dragons were feeding their lines in behind them. To starboard, the sandstorm was thinning as he expected. Soon, only the Marula churning the earth would sustain it along their original front. If the fog failed too soon, Jaspar might see there was no longer a battleline of dragons confronting him.

  When his Lefthand made him aware Osidian was sending the second torch signal, Carnelian had this relayed to the three dragons on his starboard flank. He watched as the nearest advanced and imagined the other two doing the same, each further than its neighbour to form the right horn of Osidian’s hollow crescent. They were ready for battle.

  Lightning flashed to right and left in the murk. A shrill screaming was muffled by the dust-cloud.

  ‘Dragonfire,’ Carnelian muttered.

  A throaty brass voice groaned. He was already giving the predetermined command even as the Marula rushed back towards him, like ants fleeing a forest fire. ‘Ahead full.’

  His Righthand had hardly finished muttering into his voice fork when Carnelian felt the change in Earth-is-Strong. The power of her sinews caused the tower to vibrate in a way that made him expect it to chime like a bell. Air wafted in against them. He felt dust scratching against his mask. Then all this was forgotten. A colonnade of shadows was solidifying ahead. For a moment Carnelian had the impression the fog would clear and he would see before him the Isle of Flies, or the edge of the Labyrinth. As each pillar grew more visible, his eyes widened behind his mask in disbelief. Dragons they were, but even more massive than the one he rode. A flash of flame seemed to oil the gold-sheathed curves of immense horns. A head that was a wedge of hide and bone weightier than the prow of a baran. The tower emerging from the gloom was four-tiered and had three flame-pipes pointing straight at him. He felt he was gazing down those barrels, waiting for fiery death to come searing out at him. An electric arc screamed into being so close he braced for the scorching of the fire upon his skin. He saw it was in reality a twin jet of flame pouring towards the oncoming monsters from Heart-of-Thunder.

  ‘Flame,’ he said.

  He felt a rumble through his feet, a sighing almost too low to hear, a choke and splutter, then the screams vibrating their harmony against each other as liquid flame spat out. Its arches collided with Osidian’s. More were coming in from around the curve of the crescent.
Glaring light that made him jerk up an arm to shield his eyes. Heat upon heat building along the leather of his upheld forearm, beginning to seep through the gold cheek of his mask. Head averted, teeth clenched, he squinted, watching the sun they were rolling before them. Its white heart coruscating, pulsating in time with the spluttering gurgle of naphtha pumping out below his feet. He sensed, more than saw, the massive Ichorian monster veering away from the fireball. He was mesmerized by the carved complex geometries of its tower, stark in the blinding light. His starboard companion dragon was slowing, being left behind. The sun before them was flickering, dulling as the flame arcs of his horn of the crescent swung away. A jet of burning naphtha splashed against the flank of the Ichorian dragon. Carnelian leaned on the arm of his chair to watch the fire pouring off it, stunned.

  Then he felt his own pipes shut off. The fire in front of them vanished into black smoke that, as it thinned, allowed him to see that the way ahead seemed clear. He gaped, incredulous, as the fog ahead paled from violet to blue. Sky and land stretched empty to the horizon.

  The plan coming unbidden to his mind issued a command through his voice. ‘Hard to starboard.’

  As Earth-is-Strong wheeled, the rear of Jaspar’s dragon line came into view. Rumps moving away from him partially veiled by the dust fog. Incredulous, he gave another command. ‘Pipes to fire at will.’

  The pipes beneath him began spitting long fiery jets feathered with black smoke that fell upon the dragons and their towers. As they thundered along behind that long line, raking it with fire, Carnelian rose to his feet and swayed over to grab hold of the screen and peer through. Osidian’s plan was working. Carnelian could think of nothing else. The fearsome destruction his fire was wreaking upon the defenceless monsters was confounding his disbelief. As their towers began to smoulder, the creatures reacted by trying to turn away from the heat. Order soon turned to chaos. Their screeching was like tearing bronze as their hide blistered and ruptured. Maddened by pain, blindly they swerved and, here and there, were punching into each other. Towers crashed together, or began to heel over.