by Grace Martin
He took command. Still on horseback, he started pointing at the older teenagers and the few guards who remained, issuing orders. They ran to obey. In minutes, he had organised bucket chains, search parties and tried to make sure every person in the settlement was accounted for. Chaos slowly turned to order. Small herds of children, clinging tightly together in case Caradoc shouted at them again, hustled towards the gates to head for the other village.
I even saw Aoife, bending over fallen children and laying her hands on them to heal them. I had little healing power. I was only good at destroying things, so I joined a bucket chain.
I thought everything was getting under control. I thought it was over. Then I heard the screams.
A bucket chain in another part of the compound disintegrated, buckets flying everywhere as people screamed and cowered or ran for their lives. The man next to me froze in the act of passing me a bucket. He was looking up. I followed his gaze just as I took hold of the handle.
I dropped the bucket.
The dragon had been gliding silently overhead. I couldn’t even be sure how long he’d been there. He was enormous, borne aloft by the magic that consumed him, so he barely had to flap his wings. His massive head bent as he surveyed the scene before him.
He stretched his lips in a smile that showed more teeth than I was comfortable with. I was transfixed, standing stock still, as he drew in a deep breath and exhaled fire over the compound. Part of the flame engulfed a building. Most of the flame engulfed other bucket chain.
People ignited like matches and twirled around the compound, screaming and screaming. I didn’t even breathe as they wheeled towards me.
Caradoc ran towards the flaming people. ‘Drop and roll!’ he shouted, again and again. ‘Drop and roll!’ He tore off his cloak as he shoved a screaming, burning child to the ground and beat the flames with his cloak. Free of the stasis that had consumed me, I followed suit and others, including Aoife, followed.
Aoife went behind Caradoc, again healing those who had been consumed by the flame. The glow that came from her hands was almost unbearably bright now as she moved quickly from patient to patient, but her steps started to stagger she passed between them and exhaustion began to take hold.
The dragon breathed in again. I could hear the sound sawing roughly along my bones. I may not have Caradoc or Aoife’s healing powers, but I was very good at destroying things. Everyone should have a special skill. As quickly as I could, I drew the winds from all around me again and cast them towards the dragon.
It wasn’t much, because I hadn’t taken the time to gather the most power I could, but I had to move quickly. It didn’t stop the dragon from flaming, but it hit the dragon squarely in the snout and knocked his head back as he breathed out. The flame passed over our heads, heating the night air, but not reaching anything on the ground.
Frustrated and angry, the dragon threw back his head even further and bellowed his rage. The sound reverberated through the ground. When he lowered his head again, he targeted me. I was ready for him and cast a shield around me, just in time to protect myself from the flame.
The moment the flame subsided, I found Caradoc next to me. Caradoc raised an arm high in the air and shouted, ‘Magi, to me!’
It had never occurred to me that there would be magi among the children, but Caradoc had grown up in this place. He knew what resources they could bring to bear. A dozen children and teenagers ran towards us and I marvelled at their bravery. Caradoc was still calling orders for archers and shouting something about catapults.
Other young people went off to fulfil his commands. Off to our left, in a matter of minutes, two dozen young people ranged themselves into ranks, thrusting arrows into the ground in front of them. One of them shouted, ‘Prepare!’ and every second row dropped to a crouch while the alternate rows stood straight and raised their bows to point at the dragon.
On the other side, slower, but more deadly, long rows of young people were dragging a catapult into position. It was incredible that this village full of children should be more readily prepared for war than the Library at Cairnagorn, the stronghold of the most powerful magi in the Thousand Counties.
The next time the dragon came around, I was feeling more confident. The winds around us were whipping into a cyclone. The fires were raging hotter than ever, fed to a frenzy by the wind, but without the magic that caused the wind we might as well give up and die by the flames already surrounding us.
Caradoc put his hand on my shoulder. I felt the shock of that touch all the way to my toes, but it wasn’t a romantic feeling; it was a magical feeling, a powerful feeling. He wasn’t just offering me support, he was making his magic available to me. All his power was added to mine and it ran through me like lightning.
A younger boy put his hand on Caradoc’s arm. A teenage girl put her hand on my other shoulder until I stood in the centre of a star of magi, layer upon layer, each with their hand on the shoulder of the mage in front of them. The power was so intense that the fine hairs on the backs of my arms rows in my flesh crawl to goosebumps.
I drew in their power like drawing in a deep breath. I raised both hands to the sky. The dragon flew down low towards us, drawing a deep breath of his own, ready to flame.
The power erupted from my hands like lightning. I let the power flow through me and gave the dragon every last ounce of magic that we could share between us. Just as I cast the magic at him, I was as close as I’d been to the dragon the night Rheged was attacked. I knew that the dragon who attacked Rheged was Darragh ‒ I’d had a chance to see him change into his other form at close hand.
This was not the same dragon. That meant there was more than one of them.
The magic hit the dragon right in the centre of the chest. It blasted him so hard, it pushed him back through the air. If he was a human, he would have staggered.
The dragon didn’t roar, he screamed, an enormous, shrill sound that felt like it pierced my skull via the space behind my ear. I threw my head back in pain and gritted my teeth to keep the screams inside.
All around me, the children cried out. Some of the younger ones started to cry. Caradoc’s hand fell heavier on my shoulder as he nearly collapsed. I staggered under his weight until he brought himself upright again.
The dragon was arched backwards in agony. He dipped low in the air. People on the ground started screaming and running for cover again as the dragon fell out of the sky. He landed in a burning building and sent sparks and detritus flying everywhere.
Even my staunch group of young magi was scattered. Beside me, Caradoc drew his sword. After a burst of magic like that, none of us was going to be able to do any magic until we recovered our strength. My breath came faster and the air was suddenly too thick to breathe. I realised that Caradoc was getting ready to make his last stand.
It hadn’t occurred to me that I might die here tonight. I had more to live for than I’d ever had before and I wasn’t going to put up with this. Even if it meant I had to take the dragon down with my teeth, I was going to survive this night.
Chapter Thirteen
We were alone now. Even Aoife had gone missing. The catapult was nearby. The young warriors had prepared it but had not had time to use it. It was a massive pile of machinery, but all someone would have to do to make it go was pull a massive lever. Caradoc had more hope of doing that than I did.
I shouted to Caradoc, ‘Use the catapult!’ He didn’t even pause to look back at me. He just ran for the catapult.
There was no huge block of stone loaded in the scoop. The Camiri children wouldn’t have been able to load it in the brief time they’d had to prepare. Instead, they had filled the scoop with a load of fist sized rocks, each the shape of a pyramid – lots of sharp corners. I gasped when Caradoc seized a burning lump of wood from a small fire nearby. He touched the flame to the sharp stones and they caught alight. The scoop was now full of flame.
The dragon groaned – moaned and complained and tried to lift himself up, making
more of the shell of the building around him collapse. My heart leapt. Without meaning to, the dragon had just opened a path for me.
There was a spear lying on the ground nearby and I could hear ‒ now that most of the people had run away – the sound of a horse nearby. It was the horse Caradoc had ridden to reach the village. I used a tiny bit of magic to calm the horse, but even that small bit of magic made me sink to my knees.
But I wasn’t going to die tonight, and that was final. Holding the spear in one hand, I threw myself up into the saddle. I turned the horse’s head and galloped away but I wasn’t running away. I was getting a good run up.
I got to the edge of the village. I tucked the spear tight under my arm, like a lance. I closed my fist around it until my knuckles were white. At the edge of the village, I turned. Caradoc loosed the catapult. A hail of burning stones arched their way through the sky towards the dragon. As they landed, the dragon cried, almost whimpered. The fire could not hurt the dragon, but those small, sharp stones might be able to pierce his hide. He was still making noises. He still wasn’t dead. I needed him dead.
For a moment, for one fleeting moment, I saw Caradoc turn and look at me and I saw him realise what I was about to do. I heard him shout, ‘No! Emer, no!’
I ignored him. I had to ignore him. I didn’t even breathe as I galloped, as hard and fast as I could, towards the dragon.
I rode the horse right through the gap in the building that had collapsed when the dragon had tried to lift himself. The spear was tight under my arm, tight in my fist. I was aiming right for the dragon’s head, planning to shove that spear right through his eyeball, but he saw me coming and moved his head in alarm at the last moment. The spear went into the upper part of his chest.
He didn’t scream, this time. He made a gurgling noise. I was terrified. I was right beneath the dragon’s head. His head was as long as I was tall. All he needed to do was open his mouth and lower his head to swallow me in one bite.
And then Caradoc was beside me, slashing with his sword like a madman. The dragon slowly lowered his head. I was still sitting on the horse, right in front of the dragon. He couldn’t miss me. As it turned out, he was beyond caring. The dragon lay his head on the ground among the ruins of the collapsed building and died.
I had just killed a dragon.
Oh, my God, I had just killed a dragon.
I couldn’t believe what I had just done. They told me that no one could kill a dragon. But there it was, right in front of me. Dead. And I had killed it.
I slid off the horse. I was shaking all over. The adrenaline that had driven me was slowly dissipating. Caradoc put his arms around me. He was shaking from head to foot, too.
There was another building across the street from where the dragon lay dead. The fires hadn’t reached it and we would be safe there for a moment. I couldn’t tell you how many long moments we stood there, just inside the doorway of the dark building, holding one another tight and shaking.
The only thing that roused us from our shock was the last sound either of us had expected to hear. It was the cry of a dragon.
I looked out the window that was right beside us. The dragon still lay dead in the ruins of the building across the street. He hadn’t moved. Then I remembered, this dragon had looked different from the one who had attacked the palace. I looked up. There, in the sky, a patch of darker darkness that blotted out the stars, was another dragon.
We had no hope at all. Neither of us had any more magic. Neither of us even had any more strength. We crouched down low beside the window and watched as the other dragon landed in the middle of the street. The new dragon nuzzled his head against the fallen dragon’s shoulder. The new dragon made a sweet sound that almost sounded like the purring of a cat. He nudged at the fallen dragon again. It didn’t move.
When the second dragon realised that first was dead, he threw his head back and trumpeted to the sky. He launched himself back into the air and flew off into the night.
I had a horrible thought, as we watched the dragon fly away, though it couldn’t have been much more horrible than the thoughts that had been going through my head throughout the whole of the night. I turned to Caradoc. ‘Where do you think he’s going?’ I asked. ‘What’s in that direction?’
He drew in a deep breath full of the smoky air. ‘He’s flying towards Rheged,’ he said quietly.
A chill went through me, despite the heat. ‘He’s going there to get revenge,’ I said. I looked up at him. ‘Because I killed the other dragon. Because of me, he’s going to destroy the city.’ My breath came faster. ‘I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought I was defeating evil. But I might as well have killed them all myself!’
I was getting hysterical, my voice was rising higher and higher and my chest was getting so tight that I could barely breathe.
Caradoc gripped me by my shoulders. ‘You haven’t killed anyone,’ he cried. ‘You’ve saved lives. You’ve done more than anyone thought was humanly possible. You killed a dragon. What would you have rather done? Allowed the dragon to go on killing?’ He let me go to point out at the street. ‘You saw that he enjoyed setting those… those children on fire. He thought it was tremendous fun. Even on a dragon’s face you could see that he loved to watch them burn. That kind of thing used to be allowed here. It didn’t matter if the children lived or died.’
He grabbed my hand and dragged me out into the street. He turned around, gesturing to everything falling to ruin around him. ‘Look at this place! They were taken from their families and they were beaten and abused because they weren’t Meistri. They were Camiri, so they might as well have not been human. They were treated worse than animals. They had no rights. They were only tools, not humans. No one cared what they went through, no one cared if they were happy, no one cared if they got sick and died. The Masters only cared if the children couldn’t progress through their training at an acceptable rate. Haven’t those children suffered enough? Don’t they deserve a champion too?’
I caught my breath at last because I’d never understood him so well as I did in that moment. That was what drove him. He had seen cruelty and injustice all his life. He’d decided that he couldn’t bear it anymore and he’d started a revolution. He would have done anything, because those children deserved a champion, too.
In a sudden movement I grabbed his face and pulled his head down so I could plant a fierce kiss on his lips. Straight away, he wrapped his arms around me and kissed me with all his anger and all his burning desire for justice ‒ and with all his love, because I could feel the love in that kiss despite his anger and despair. He held me tight against him and I clung to him.
When we drew apart, he looked down at me and smiled. His lips returned for another kiss, tender this time, sipping at my lips.
We shared the horse on the ride back to the palace. No matter how hard we rode, or so Caradoc said, we wouldn’t get there before morning. We left the burning remains of the Halls of the Young behind us.
We rode hard, but Caradoc was careful not to exhaust the horse. We stopped several times on the way to give the horse a chance to rest or when we found fresh water. I treasured those moments. In those moments, Caradoc was completely mine and I was completely his. When we reached the palace, we would become the Camiri leader and the Bach Chwaer again and there would be no hope of our ever experiencing such private time together.
I was tired. More than tired; I was exhausted. I was covered with soot and ash and blood and I probably reeked with sweat, but I was happier than I had ever been in my life.
By the time we arrived back in the city, it was aglow. Entire districts were aflame. Chaos was everywhere. Caradoc didn’t stop, but rode directly on to the palace. Several times, we had to skirt around the path we had intended to take to avoid burning buildings or a panicking mob. After the first time a group of men approached the horse, Caradoc rode with his naked sword in his hand.
I couldn’t see his face, but his muscles were tense. Even I wasn’t s
ure what Caradoc would do if someone attacked us. He was so grim that I wouldn’t have been surprised if he rode down anyone who tried to get in our way.
When we reached the palace, it was full of mourners. We had expected action, but instead it was full of people whose faces and clothes were as smeared with soot as ours were. These people were in mourning, crying, bowed prostrate on the floor, wailing aloud. My heart dipped for a moment and I wondered whether the Empress was dead.
I saw a familiar figure and ran towards it, leaving Caradoc behind. ‘Gwen!’ I cried. ‘Gwen! What happened?’ It was hard to recognise her face with the pattern of soot covering it and her clothes in disarray.
She turned a shocked face to me, and in one terrible moment, I saw that she was disappointed to see me. ‘Gwen, why is everyone in mourning? Why aren’t they doing things? The city is on fire!’
‘Oh, Bach Chwaer, the most terrible thing has happened! The whole palace is consumed with shock and fear. Such an awful thing – who could even think of such an awful thing? She was such a nice person! She was always kind to everyone, always had time for everyone, no matter whether they were a grand Duchess or a scullery maid. It’s unthinkable, oh, Bach Chwaer, it’s just unthinkable.’
She leaned her head forward and, resting her head against my shoulder, started to cry. I patted her back, because what else are you supposed to do when someone is crying? I still had no idea what was going on. I realised that Caradoc was standing next to me when he spoke.
‘Gwen, you need to tell us what has happened. ‘Why is everyone in mourning?’
Gwen looked up at Caradoc, her tears still making tracks through the sooty spirals traced onto her cheeks. She drew in a shuddering breath and tried to take control of herself. ‘The dragon has come again to Rheged. The dragon came in anger and destroyed large parts of the city. Reports of the damage are still reaching us. Then the dragon landed in the largest courtyard in the palace, the one that stands outside the barracks. A soldier spoke, but it was the dragon speaking through him.’ Gwen shuddered. ‘I had no idea that dragons could do that. The dragon said that he was Master Darragh, the Librarian, and the Empress has killed his son. The dragon said that he has six other sons and all of them will join him to gain revenge against the Empress.