by Arthur Slade
It smashed me down onto Brax’s back, then pain erupted in both shoulders and I was yanked upward.
Away from Brax.
But I didn’t fall. I was caught in the talons of a black swan.
Gregum peered down at me, one hand on his reins, and he grinned like mad. Half his face was red with healing flesh from his acid wound.
“Surprise,” he said. “Your brother will be so happy to see you.”
Chapter 13
An Epic Tale
The talons were stabbing into my shoulders, threatening to pierce right through them. The swan had swept its powerful wings and climbed so high into the clouds I’d lost sight of Brax.
“Snatched right from a dragon’s back!” Gregum cackled. “This is going to be an epic tale to tell Corwin! Higher! Higher!”
The swan responded to his commands, pushing itself deeper into the clouds, far away from Brax. I tried to shout his name, but the wind muffled my cries. Gregum was going to fly straight above the city and dive through the magical wards and into the palace, and there would be no way for Brax to follow us.
“You won’t live to tell the tale!” I shouted.
Laughter was his only reply.
“Brax!” I shouted in the vain hope he could hear me. “Brax!” Even if he was looking through my eye, all he would see was clouds.
“Squeeze her until she shuts up,” Gregum said. The swan tightened its talons, digging further into my flesh. I nearly screamed, but bit my lip because I knew Gregum would enjoy hearing my cries.
“Brax!” I gave one more shout, but the pain grew so strong I worried I’d fall unconscious.
I’d have to figure my own way out.
Even though it hurt, I reached up with my left hand past one swan leg and could just grab the saddle belt. I clutched it with all my might and used my other hand to slip a dagger out of its sheath. I thrust it into the talon sticking into my left shoulder.
The swan gave a horrible hissing squawk and tried to peck at me, but I stabbed another talon and it released my left shoulder. Two quick stabs later, it had completely let go and I hung from the belt. I yanked myself up so I was out of reach of the talons and the beak. The bird was going mad with pain and anger, flapping through the sky, spiralling left and right.
“Stop that! Stop!” Gregum shouted. I didn’t know whether he was yelling at me or his mount. “Stop it, you stupid bird!”
With one slice of my dagger I could cut the belt and he would fall. But so would I, and I wasn’t certain whether we were above the water or land now.
I sheathed my dagger, since the plan that had popped into my skull involved climbing, and I pulled my two-handed way along the swan’s underbelly, swung my legs out for momentum, and then arced around and kicked Gregum in the midsection.
It was a direct hit, and he’d been looking the other way, trying to gain control of his swan. But Gregum was a lot bigger than me and had a tight grip on the reins and the saddle horn. I only knocked him halfway off the saddle.
He grabbed one of my legs and pulled but I kicked him with the other, hitting his chain mail. He laughed at that, so my second kick was higher and struck his forehead.
The blow didn’t faze him. He’d always had a tough skull and loved inflicting and receiving pain. Gregum stood in the saddle, holding tight with his knees, digging into the stirrups and pulling me up. I held as tight as I could but soon felt my cold fingers lose strength, and I let go of the belt.
He held me far enough above the swan that I couldn’t reach him.
“This is where the tale ends,” he said. “It’s too much work to take you back alive. I’ll just return with your broken body.”
His scarred lips were curling into a twisted smile.
“About your face,” I said. “It’s an improvement!”
“I’ll enjoy hearing you hit the ground,” he replied.
Before he could throw me, the swan hissed a warning and a giant shape smashed into us in mid-air.
Brax had rammed the swan at full speed. It was an almost perfect blow. Gregum was tossed from the saddle. The swan’s neck and right wing were broken, and feathers flew all around us.
And I, having no wings, fell straight from the sky.
Chapter 14
The Way Down
We came out of the cloud cover. Three hurtling grey shadows going straight down.
And we had not travelled as far as I’d thought, for we were still over the Ursa Sea. I tumbled left and right, trying to straighten out, but only managing to get myself into a horrible spin. Despite that, I searched the sky for Brax. I spotted Gregum glittering about twenty feet below me — it looked like he was trying to pull off his armour, but there wasn’t time. The lifeless swan was plummeting like a rock.
Brax was nowhere to be seen.
By holding out my arms and legs and tightening my stomach muscles, I stopped the tumbling and got my feet to point straight down. I snapped my head left and right looking for Brax, hoping he’d come swooping out of those shadows. I tried to yell but the air ripped words from my mouth.
Gregum hit first, making a powerful splash. Then about thirty feet away from him the swan’s body crashed into the waves.
I gulped air before striking the water.
It was like being punched on the bottom of my feet and the blow going all the way up my spine, making my bones ache.
I went down. Down. Down. The water was like ice. Further and further I went. I thought of the stories of men with webbed feet and gills who lived at the bottom of the ocean. Stories I’d read as a child. I’d be seeing those creatures soon. Further down I went until I thought my lungs would burst.
Then I slowed and could kick my legs and begin the long push to the surface. I rose higher and higher but had no idea how far the surface was, since there wasn’t even a moon to look for.
They had taught us in assassin school how to sit underwater and hold our breath without letting out the smallest bubble. But I’d been fighting and my shoulders ached with every movement and my legs were growing weaker. My lungs demanded more air.
But further I went. Upward, into the never-ending greyness. The surface had to be near. It had to be.
But the need for air grew and grew so that every other thought and warning was pushed aside.
Just one breath. Maybe I was already at the surface and I didn’t know it.
One breath wouldn’t hurt.
And I opened my mouth. Knowing it was wrong, but I couldn’t stop my lungs from demanding it.
And I sucked in the water.
It made me cough, which forced me to suck in more. Pain shot through my head and lights flashed in my eyes.
I stopped kicking upward. My legs no longer worked.
When people drown, they don’t thrash. They grow quiet. That is what Master Alesius had told us. That the body stops working and the brain stops thinking.
I would die soon. One eye was going black.
Only my dragon eye was focusing and seeing nothing but greyness.
No. Not nothing.
Because a dark shape hurtled toward me.
Chapter 15
No Warning Shouts
The shape grew from being grey and featureless to a recognizable form with a glowing eye: it was Brax, cutting through the water, his wings folded against his side and bubbles of air shooting past him. He caught me up in his jaws, unfurled those wings, and was able to push us higher and higher.
I could see the surface. A slightly brighter place above us.
Then everything went black.
I floated for a long time and my thoughts slowed to nothing. I had no wants. No desires. No pain. Only darkness.
It wasn’t so bad. At least I didn’t have to struggle.
And then a voice trickled into my ears. “Breathe,” it said. “Breathe.” Something was pressing on my chest and I knew I no longer floated — there was solidity under my back and legs. And yet it was soft too.
“Breathe, child! Breathe!”
I opened my dragon eye. Brax was looking down at me, and I was splayed in soft sand as he pressed his hands against my chest and my stomach. I coughed, spurting water in an impressive stream. Another watery cough gargled out and another and then air, air somehow magically found its way into my lungs. I sucked in again and again until my lungs were full. Then I coughed more.
The sky was cloudy. We were on the beach near the walls of Akkadium and could be easily spotted by a fisherman or lookouts in their towers. It was a wonder that no warning shouts or flares had gone up yet.
Any observer would have seen there was a dragon leaning over me.
“Good!” Brax said. “You’re not dead.”
With the support of one of his talons, I could sit up. The lights of Akkadium danced in my vision.
“We can’t linger here,” Brax said. He was dripping water, his scales glistening, and without another word he scooped me up in his talons and took to the air. He was much more gentle than the swan had been.
I coughed out the rest of the water as we climbed higher. Maybe it was his intention to shake the rest of the sea out of my innards. I wanted to say something, anything, but my words had been left in the watery depths. I closed my eyes.
When I next opened them, it was as he settled me gently on the ground near the offal house and then landed beside me. I used his leg as a support and climbed to my feet. I leaned against him. “You saved me,” I said.
“Yes, Carmen. It was part of our bargain. I promised to do everything I could to keep you safe.”
“But you risked your life. Why not let me die?”
“I am a dragon of my word.”
My wind was coming back. “Thank you,” I said. And I hugged his leg.
He patted my shoulder and said, “I was only doing what I promised. Don’t get emotional.”
I knew it was more. Beyond our contract. He had wanted me to live, had called me child. Almost as if he were my father.
“I had no idea that dragons could swim,” I said.
“It’s not something I like to do.”
“Did … did you see what happened to Gregum?”
“Unless he grew gills, he has drowned. He was wearing armour. He’s at the bottom now where he belongs. The fish will nibble him down to nothing.”
I nodded. I was wearing a cloak that had threatened to drag me down, but he had been in chain mail. He was dead.
“Good,” I said. He had killed so many of our friends. “That is wonderful news. Let’s go inside and share it with Thord.”
Chapter 16
Words by the Hearth
“By Belaz, what happened?” Thord said the moment the door opened.
I explained what I could but was shivering too much to make proper sense.
“We must build you a fire,” he said, pulling me toward the hearth.
“It might show off our position,” I said.
“Not if there isn’t smoke,” Brax said. “I can make a fire that will warm you without wood.”
He went over to the hearth and made a gargling noise like he was bringing up a horrible collection of phlegm, even working his shoulders and chest, and then he spat whatever it was into the hearth. He snorted a funnel of fire toward the liquid. It burst into flames and kept burning.
Brax could spit a liquid that would later burn. My slow, cold mind made measure of that and added it to my list of weapons.
I almost crawled over to the fire and Thord, despite his own wounds, helped me. I got as close as I could to the flames and shivered. I stripped off my cloak but was too decorous to go any further. The heat would dry me soon enough.
“So Gregum is dead?” he said.
“He’s at the bottom of the Ursa Sea,” Brax said. “Maybe an eel is using him as a home.”
Warmth worked its way through my skin, reaching for my bones. My throat and nose hurt, burned by the salt water. And my eyes were red. I was certain I looked like, well, like someone who had nearly drowned. But I didn’t care. Slowly I stopped shivering. Then, not just out of vanity, I combed out my hair, finding seaweed and some other green bits. But it, too, grew dry. The flame still burned strongly.
Then the pain started — my body hadn’t liked fighting Gregum and slamming into the water from such a great height. But mostly my shoulders ached, and I pulled back my tunic enough to see gouges left by the swan’s talons.
“Oh, it really got you,” Thord said. “Does it hurt?”
It was perhaps the stupidest question he’d ever asked. I searched for a quip, but failed. “Yes,” I said. “Yes. A lot.”
“It’s a flesh wound,” Brax added. “Get over it.”
I shot him a glare and searched for a biting remark, but suddenly shuddered in surprise. Thord had placed his hand on my shoulder and was already rubbing lotion over the wound. “This will soothe it,” he said.
I stood stock-still and even held my breath. His touch was gentle and within moments he had applied bandages to both shoulders. “That should do it,” Thord said.
“Thanks,” I said, covering my shoulders again.
“Hey, if we couldn’t patch each other’s wounds up what kind of team would we be?”
The pain had been soothed but my shoulders tingled. I was certain it wasn’t just from his touch.
“I don’t know if you’ll be able to go to the palace tomorrow,” he said. “Those are some nasty holes.”
“They’ll just have to heal overnight.” After my experience with the acid, I wondered if that would actually happen. When there was time to pause, I’d have to figure out what was happening to my body. “I only have to look presentable enough to muck about in the barn. And watch the fireworks.”
“Fireworks?”
I’d forgotten to mention the barges floating outside the walls of Akkadium. I described what I’d seen.
“That gives me an idea,” Thord said when I was finished. He looked at the fire, at Brax, then at me. “I think I’ve found a job for me.”
Chapter 17
Forgettable
In the morning I was back inside the palace shovelling a fresh collection of horse poop and straw, ignoring my aching shoulders as we filled wagon after wagon. Did the emperor want the place so clean that it would appear his horses had never defecated? I kept hoping that Megan would just wander by, but knew she was most likely working in the palace.
Hours passed. Blisters formed. The morning turned to afternoon and stretched toward the evening, shovelful by shovelful. I went through the plan Thord, Brax, and I had decided on, rehearsing each step and looking for weaknesses. Maestru Alesius had always said the best plans fall apart the moment you leave the planning room — I wanted to be prepared for that. I wouldn’t have called it a brilliant plan, but the biggest weakness was that I couldn’t pass the information along to Megan.
Now was the time to try the first part of our plan. And if this failed, the whole plan was for nought. I worked my way closer to the barn, waiting for when Horse Benalk was looking away.
And then my luck changed for the better. An overseer from another group of workers came running up to Benalk and said, “Mistress. The main wagon is stuck.”
“They just need proper motivation,” she said. “I’ll provide it.” She marched off in the direction the man had come from. The overseer remained to encourage us to work harder.
His guttural commands were aggravating, but he had one wonderful quality: he had a wandering eye.
First, he watched us work, but when a gaggle of servant women trundled by his leering gaze was drawn to them. While he was still staring at the women, I took two steps backwards into a shaded section of the barn that I knew was hidden from sight from several directions. It was a perfectly executed disappearance.
Except for the horse dung. Apparently, we hadn’t cleaned up every last bit of it because I’d stepped right into a fresh pile. Wonderful!
I climbed into the rafters, my feet slipp
ing on the fresh material stuck to my boots. Despite that, I made my way to the top so I’d be out of sight. I settled in and waited, sitting comfortably on a beam. Only the keenest eye would spot me.
In time I heard the call that meant we were done work and was pleased it was the same man who made the call — Horse Benalk was still busy getting the wagon free. The overseer entered the barn below me and I stayed still. He gave a perfunctory look around, but didn’t glance up. Then he left.
I stayed in that position until night fell.
Chapter 18
A Great Leap
It would be easier to be spotted along the ground because there were so many extra soldiers and Immortals patrolling. I had no uniform or fancy dress to wear as a disguise, so I stayed as high up as possible. I climbed out the window at the back of the stable and onto the roof, hoping that my dark clothing hid me. And I moved slowly, as Maestru Alesius had taught me, because fast movements drew the eye.
I spidered across to the next building, crawled along the roof and then sat still for several minutes, noting the placement of each guard on the towers above me and when they would switch. The sky was littered by a few small clouds and the moon wasn’t bright, but it cast enough light to make my skin glint, so I made sure my sleeves were drawn.
I noted, too, that the lords and ladies were now streaming into the palace itself, escorted by Immortals, their armour shined to a dazzling brightness that made them hard to miss from this distance. They glowed in the rows of torches and it was clear why so much light had been set around the pathways. Emperor Sargon wanted every symbol of his power to burn in the minds of his guests.
When I got to the edge of the building, I discovered a minor problem. My next logical step was to leap to a long balcony on the palace itself, but there was a rather intimidating distance between the two buildings. I’d have to make the attempt at top speed.
I waited until I was certain the guards on the towers were turned away and the ground below was clear. And then I ran quietly and swiftly along the roof. The surface was solid, and I didn’t make much noise but it might be enough to attract attention. When I reached the end, I tried to jump with a good grip, but my left foot slipped on a loose tile. Apparently the executioner hadn’t overseen the hammering of every single tile.