by Terry Madden
A cool shadow passed over them. The dragon.
Nechtan was tasked with guiding the creature. He needed to stay in the rear. But he was doing no such thing. She could see him now on his black horse, riding north. He was urging the men of the Old Blood and Ys into their shield walls. Mirroring the movement of the archers, the foot soldiers crept forward in formation. Fiach’s men moved to block the bridge with Glaw’s men flanking.
A barrage of arrows launched from the wall, and bristled in the shallows of the lake. The shafts pattered upon the planking of the bridge.
“Don’t waste your arrows!” the captain shouted.
Lyleth’s hands were sweating. She wiped them on her trousers.
The first mangonel fired, but the stone dropped wide of the gatehouse. It managed only to take out a merlon along the wall, before disappearing inside the fortress. The second mangonel didn’t do much better. Its stone fell short.
The Sunless swarms slammed into the first line of soldiers.
The captain moved the archers into range, and gave the order to nock and loose.
Lyleth’s arrow was away, and a cloud of Sunless slapped into her shroud. Like moths at a flame, they threw themselves at her face. Clutching the sheer fabric with their six tiny hands, they hung on, screaming in high-pitched voices. Lyleth brushed the bowstring across her face, knocking them off. More replaced them. She couldn’t see to fire, so she shot blindly, giving her arrows a high arc toward the walls.
The archers from the wall answered with their own volley.
A tattering of shafts striking wooden shields mixed with the cries of those who were hit.
The swarms cleared for a moment, long enough for Lyleth to see the dragon. It was circling the great spire, sailing in and out of the blinding rays of sunlight emanating from the stone. What was Nechtan doing?
The swarms, which had been so thick, now lessened. They had turned back to attack the dragon.
As the creature passed close to the spire, its talons reached out and clutched for the stone branches that supported a balcony. Masonry crumbled and fell, but Lyleth saw two figures drop from the creature’s back. Saeth and Junoc.
The dragon launched from the spire, sending a fall of stone crashing down on the walls below. It spun northward chased by a cloud of arrows and Sunless.
The sound of rattling chains came from the fortress.
The drawbridge was opening. And it wasn’t sprites that appeared from inside the gate.
An army of risen Sunless marched in perfect formation, their weapons glinting in the setting sun.
Across the field, Lyleth heard Fiach’s voice. He was urging his men to hold the line at the bridge.
In unison, Lyleth and the archers nocked and drew. The target was now the bridge, and the Sunless upon it.
A cloud of arrows arced over the water and pummeled the creatures on the bridge. Not one fell. With arrows prickling from their undead bodies, they continued to come.
Where was Connor? And where was Nechtan?
He’d sent the dragon away, undoubtedly to keep it from the Sunless. But how would they stop the risen on the bridge without it?
She fired another volley.
“It’s no use!” she called to the captain.
Another wave of Sunless sprites assaulted them, breaking the ranks of archers. Many ran, beating at their own heads. The sprites latched onto the man beside Lyleth—a dozen of the things yanking at his shroud. He began to panic. Lyleth held onto him and tried to pulled the things off his shroud, ignoring those on her own. But in pulling at them, she pulled the hem of the fabric from his collar. The man shoved her to the ground, and ran.
Ragnhast grappled him to the ground, trying to tuck the hem back in, but the archer kneed him.
Suddenly, the archer’s frantic flailing stopped.
“No!” Lyleth cried. “No, no, no. Get away, Ragnhast!”
The stricken man pulled off his shroud, and Lyleth watched the last glow of a sprite disappear into the man’s wailing mouth.
Then he was up.
His eyes blazed with the same fire as the one she’d seen on the battlements. The thing drew is short sword and launched at Lyleth as if she were his only target.
Ragnhast caught the man’s blade with his axe.
The captain sent an arrow into the man’s back, but it did nothing to stop it.
Other archers were taken in the same way, and soon every man and woman had drawn whatever weapons they possessed to fight them.
Ragnhast had one of the things on the ground. He raised an axe over his head, and swung. The man’s head rolled free, blinking wildly until the glow in its eyes faded. Once still, the sprite climbed out of one of his nostrils.
“Ve mus takes heads!” Ragnhast cried loudly. “Take heads!”
The others heard. Those with axes had a single task. Swing for the heads.
At a run, Lyleth headed toward the fighting at the bridge. The men there must know to take their heads.
As she drew closer, she saw the ranks of Sunless strike Fiach’s shield wall. Corpses moved with swift precision. Some were no more than skeletons, clothed in mail and leather, and sprouting vines from every joint. More than one creature drove itself into the forest of spears that prickled from behind Fiach’s shield wall. The Sunless grasped the hafts of the spears, and drove them back into line, bowling men over. The Sunless marched forward, riddled with arrows and spears.
Fiach’s men broke ranks, and ran.
“Take their heads!” Lyleth cried. “You must take their heads!”
“You take them!” one man said, and set out in retreat.
Lyleth searched the field for Nechtan, but it was a confusion of shrouded men and corpses.
From the wall, the repeated twack of the ballista drew her eyes to the gate just in time to see a ball of fire burst against the wooden balustrade. Nechtan still had control of the dragon.
It landed on the battlements. Its great head snaked to fire a path of flame along the wall walk, then it climbed the gate tower in two strides. With its tail curled around the spire, it launched a stream of fire into the ranks of undead that still crowded the bridge. Burning like brands, the Sunless still came. But as they reached the field, they dropped, one at a time, the fire consuming them.
Sunless archers launched volleys at the dragon from the walls. It snapped at them, flinging them from the catwalks.
The ballista finally found its mark. A bolt pierced the dragon’s neck. It screamed and fell, clawing at the walls on the way down. It tore a hole through the battlements and landed in the lake. It struggled like a wounded bird, leathery wings thrashing against the water.
Lyleth took a loose horse, mounted it, and set out to find Nechtan.
She found his black horse behind the ranks of the Old Blood, knowing him only by his mount. Cyr and his men were systematically cutting down the Sunless who’d crossed the bridge. One man would kick the creature in the chest to send it to its back, while another man took off its head. Still they came.
The air was thick with sprites that harried the horses. Lyleth’s mount bolted, taking her away from the field. She slid off, and rolled to the ground, finding herself beside a dead man without a hood. She watched more than one sprite crawl into the mouth. Within moments, the man rose.
She ran.
Between her and Nechtan there were many dead. She took a few seconds with each, making sure their shrouds were secure before she moved on.
As she drew closer to Nechtan, one of the risen Sunless crawled about on all fours, its body sprouting vine-like armor. It was in the body of a big man that moved like an animal. It leapt like a war dog onto the back of Nechtan’s horse.
The horse reared, and would have dumped him, if he had not been strapped on. His head hung limply, cloaked in the sheer fabric. It looked like a death pall. The sprites covered his head, but he made no move to pull them off.
Lyleth thought he must be dead, tethered as he was to the dragon.
T
he Sunless that was clinging to the horse’s haunches tried to reach Nechtan as the horse reared again. Lyleth picked up a spear and drove it into the body of the creature, and pushed it off the horse.
As Lyleth searched for a weapon to take its head, a rider-less horse bolted by, crushing the creature’s skull.
The bridge was on fire. The Sunless had stopped coming.
“Lyl?” Nechtan roused as if from a deep sleep. “The tether’s broken.”
He pointed at the lake. There, Lyleth saw the body of the dragon rising from the water. Its head snaked about as if looking for a target.
“Run,” Nechtan said.
“Retreat!” Lyleth cried to any still alive.
She did not look back, but knew the dragon had found the shore.
She felt the heat of its breath and heard the cries of their own men.
The dragon snatched at the retreating soldiers with jaws and claws. It came close enough to Lyleth that she could see the once-orange eye aflame with Sunless greenflow.
Lyleth took Nechtan’s outstretched hand, and climbed onto his horse behind him.
“Go!” she cried, digging her heels into the horse.
The horse had taken no more than three strides when it screamed and dropped.
Lyleth rolled free, but Nechtan was strapped onto the fallen animal which thrashed and screamed, trying to stand. A spear protruded from its side. Lyleth crawled back to Nechtan, who was sawing with a knife at the leather straps that bound him to the horse. Lyleth joined him and soon he was free, but one leg was pinned beneath the horse.
“It’s coming round,” Nechtan said, meaning the dragon, and heaved at his leg in an attempt to free it. “Go, Lyl! Find Connor.”
It was then she saw the creature who had speared the horse.
She looked up into the face of what had once been Glaw. One eye was hanging from ligaments, and the other radiated a green glow. Behind Glaw came fifty more just like him.
Lyleth hacked at Glaw with her sword, but merely buried the blade in the vines that encased his arm.
The thing that had been Glaw raised its sword and pointed it at Nechtan’s eye. His voice was a moaning wail, and emanated, not from his mouth, but from his whole being, “The king shall have the king.”
Lyleth’s hand found the strange steel weapon that belonged to the girl, Iris. It was tucked into Nechtan’s belt. She grasped its handle, drew it, and pointed, just as she’d seen the girl do. Aiming at Glaw’s head, she pulled the lever beneath her finger. An explosion kicked the weapon back into her face. Her neck snapped back and the world spun as she fell on top of Nechtan. When she opened her eyes, the figure of Glaw, his nose and jaw blown away, was bent over them. He was so close, she could smell him.
Chapter 21
The histories said that Arianrhod had grown Caer Sidi, a living thing, imbued with the greenflow of an invading army. Indeed, the structure was alive once again. The vaulted walls of the Chamber of the Sun were shaped of fossilized vines. The leaves were as supple and delicate as if they were still made of living matter. The four balconies that opened from the central high chamber now faced different views than they had the day before, for the entire fortress twisted as the vines of stone rose skyward.
Arianrhod’s dream had been no different than Tiernmas’s—she’d wanted to build a paradise of eternal life among the forest of the stars. But this time, it was Tiernmas who’d summoned this fortress from the Void. And Tiernmas would rule it.
Stone flowers bloomed in countless forms—bells and daisies and roses, tiny whorls of stone petals that opened just as those in his wreath did. In perpetual flower, never to go to blowsy seed, but always at the height of their beauty. Bloom, seed, and bloom again.
Tiernmas was weak from raising so many warriors. Idwylc waited upon him with strong tonics and dainty sweets, all of which Tiernmas refused. With the crippled Ildana king at his gates, Tiernmas needed only the council of Arianrhod. She’d freed him from his prison of stone and come to him here in the Chamber of the Sun once before, when he’d first returned to Caer Sidi. In this very chamber, Tiernmas had met the Child of Death.
He remembered standing in the center of the Chamber of the Sun, just as he was now. The child had simply appeared, clothed in a beam of golden dawn. Her tiny hands were clasped before her, and a black salamander clung to her shoulder. The green star that pulsed upon her head assured him of her identity. She who had freed him. She who had chosen him to rule the Five Quarters. She who had set the stars to spin in the black belly of the night—for him.
He remembered that he had begged her to speak, to charge him with the sovereignty of the land, of the Old Blood who had returned with him to their ancestral home. But she had simply reached out one tiny palm to him, as if beckoning him. To what? Was she displeased that he had imprisoned his solás? But Merryn would have had him give up his land to the Ildana.
It occurred to him after much reflection that the extension of Arianrhod’s hand must have been a welcome. She had surely come to usher him into the ranks of gods.
He waited for her today, as he had the five days. The setting sun was a shaft of golden heat in which he bathed, restoring his power.
The sound of battle drifted from the open balcony doors. Shouts and wails of the dying.
A messenger from his captain brought word that the gate and bridge were on fire—the work of a blood beast that could only have been raised by Caradoc. He was close. He was coming, just as Tiernmas knew he would, for he’d felt him, smelled him within the walls.
Tiernmas stepped onto the balcony to overlook the battle at the gate.
His archers lined the walls, firing clouds of arrows at the beast that circled overhead.
“He is close,” Tiernmas said to the brehon, Idwylc. “My blood scribe thinks to fight me.” He laughed. “But the maker and the made are one, Caradoc.”
A shiver of anticipation ran through Tiernmas at the prospect of reuniting with Caradoc. There are no random events in the universe. Tiernmas could hear Caradoc’s voice, see his face.
He recalled their walks in the woods north of Caer Sidi so long ago. Tiernmas had used a cane to ease the pain of his crooked spine until the day Caradoc straightened him. Tiernmas had run through the woods, then, laughing.
When he was weak from the exertion, he’d fallen into a bed of ferns, saying to Caradoc, “You’ve straightened this crooked body for a reason. Is it your reason or mine?”
“Why can’t our reasons be one and the same?” Caradoc had said. “The Five Quarters won’t survive your brother’s reign. But the universe claims that it will, for I’ve seen it. I’ve seen the glory of a lasting peace. It’s our path to bring this land to that time and place.”
There is no “now,” Caradoc had once explained. Everything is happening at once—present, future and past. We are standing on a road that stretches through all time, encountering the events that have already transpired. By that logic, Tiernmas had already reclaimed this land from the Ildana.
If his vision was so clear, why was it that Caradoc now sided with the Ildana? It made Tiernmas suspect that even those with farsight never see the whole.
Now, Tiernmas would continue to raise his army and see what kind of match his blood scribe might be. Caradoc had run from Tiernmas a thousand years before. He’d taken Merryn and fled into the arms of death. Coward.
“Not this time,” Tiernmas vowed. “I am chosen of Arianrhrod.”
“Thou art chosen of Arianrhod,” Idwylc repeated.
“Come, we must raise more warriors from their slumber.”
But as Tiernmas crossed the circular chamber, he saw her. She was hiding in the shadows at the north wall. Just a girl. The salamander scurried beneath the fall of her copper hair.
“Exalted one,” he started, “I am your—”
“Why do you persecute me so?” she asked.
“Oh no, I worship you,” Tiernmas said to Arianrhod. “Here. In your chamber.”
The brehon waited by t
he door, clearly not seeing the child, for Idwylc said, “Excellency?”
Tiernmas tried to take a step closer, but found his feet refused to move. Outside, the cranking of the ballista’s windlass was followed by the ripping release of another bolt.
“You set me free,” Tiernmas pleaded with the goddess. “You raised the fortress from the void. You set the stars in their place—”
“And you refuse peace,” the girl replied calmly. “One has come who will deliver you of your failings. Show your breast to his blade as you once bared all weakness to him. He is one who loves you. And only he can set you free.”
Then she was gone.
“My failings. My failings?” Tiernmas fumed. He found his own palms turned up questioningly. “You can’t just leave. You can’t accuse me of rejecting you and then leave. You can’t!”
His fist came down on the table beside him, snapping the legs and sending the silver cups clattering to the floor. Outside, the sound of the battle grew. Clouds passed over the sun causing the ethereal ray issuing from the sunstone to falter and fade.
“Excellency,” the brehon insisted. “We are under attack. Perhaps we should—”
“So we are. Let us raise an army that cannot die.”
The collected dead awaited him in the outer ward. Let Arianrhod mewl about her fortress and her beloved Caradoc. Tiernmas would use the greenflow of the Ildana to strengthen Caer Sidi, to make it his own, just as Arianrhod had once done with the Nemedians.
The Sunless came at his call, great clouds of sprites glowing with their treasure of greenflow. Those he did not bind to the dead flew forth from the fortress to find the living. The Sunless would bring them into the true faith. The end of death. And the paradise of Caer Sidi.
Chapter 22
As dawn warmed into midmorning, Connor contemplated how he was going to mount the horse before him, little more than a pony, really. He’d yanked every bit of greenflow from every half-dead plant for a mile around, and still he couldn’t stand without help.
The horse turned its fuzzy head, and stared at him with a gentle eye. No, he wouldn’t do that. Dylan would have to tie him on, like Saeth had tied Dish.
