Goldenfire

by A. F. E. Smith

  Ree was really beginning to hate that part of herself.

  Still, there was no time to lose. Abandoning the oblivious boys, she turned on her heel and set off at a jog to where they’d left Saydi and Lori. The nurse had been kneeling beside Saydi, who’d been lying unconscious on the grass. But as Ree got nearer, she saw that only one prone figure remained.

  Lori’s sightless eyes gazed at the sky. The hilt of the knife still protruded from beneath her ribs. Saydi was nowhere to be seen.

  Ree raised her head, and saw Darkhaven’s gate rocking slightly in the breeze.

  None of us came armed. But she’s left the knife behind. Which must mean she has access to another weapon …

  She must have access to a pistol.

  As if in a trance, she leaned down and pulled the knife out of Lori’s body. She didn’t like to do it, but if she was going to fight an assassin, she’d need some kind of weapon. It came free with a faint sucking sound and a fresh gush of blood. Ree winced, but she didn’t have time to hesitate. If she wasn’t quick, there’d be more death ahead of her.

  Gripping the bloody knife, she ran after Saydi.

  Kai slipped through the door into the transformation room and closed it behind her. She waited there for a little while, just in case anyone had seen her and followed, but no-one was even looking. They were all too distracted by Marlon’s kidnapping to remember basic security procedures. Of course, as far as most of the Helm were concerned, the assassination threat had been defused; Captain Caraway and one or two others were clearly still suspicious, but Captain Caraway was far too concerned right now to be thinking straight.

  Swiftly she unbuckled the small bottle that was strapped to her side. They hadn’t been allowed to bring any weapons up to the tower, of course, but no-one had noticed the flat hip flask beneath her clothing. At the appropriate moment, she’d simply released the pin that held the cap in place and let the blood she’d bought from the slaughterhouse do its job. As she’d hoped, the apparent injury coupled with her fainting fit had led everyone to overlook her in the subsequent panic caused by Penn’s actions.

  Of course, she’d intended them to leave her alone where she’d fallen. She hadn’t expected the nurse. And even though the woman hadn’t been on her guard, making it easy for Kai to overpower her and take the very useful knife from her belt, she’d tried her best to fight back. Indeed, she’d done a good job of getting her nails into Kai’s face before Kai stabbed her. With a frown, Kai touched the long scratch on her cheek, then let her hand fall. No matter. She’d succeeded. She was in Darkhaven.

  As she moved away from the door and headed across the vast room to the table of alchemy equipment set out on the far side, she allowed herself a satisfied smile – because, all in all, it had been very easy to get here. A simple matter of making a few deliberate mistakes in training, then letting a hint of her real talent shine through at the final test. Caraway had been genuinely impressed by what he saw as her rapid improvement, and so he’d picked her to come up to the tower with the others. It hadn’t even occurred to him that every single error had been finely judged to create the right impression: not skilled enough to be suspicious, but skilled enough to be worth teaching. He was a decent enough fighter, but he had no subtlety. None of them did. As far as her fellow trainees were concerned, she was exactly what she’d seemed.

  She’d wondered from the start if a few of them would turn out to be of use to her, but she could never have imagined quite how useful. Zander had made the perfect scapegoat. A Kardise boy – the son of a government official, no less – hiding behind a false name, pretending to be Mirrorvalese … Kai couldn’t have planned it better. And as for Penn, willing to do anything to satisfy his grudge against Caraway, he had proved to be an even greater piece of good fortune. Cultivating her relationship with him had been the best move she could have made. Not only would he provide her with the perfect distraction, but if he acted according to her careful suggestion, he’d end up killing Marlon.

  It had frustrated Kai that she hadn’t been able to see her way clear to disposing of Marlon and Ayla at the same time, given that they were so rarely together, so it pleased her greatly that Penn’s involvement would swat two flies with one blow. Not that she had anything against the child, as such. But though Marlon wasn’t a monster yet, no doubt he would be one day – and it would suit neither Kai’s purposes nor the Brotherhood’s if he survived to be concealed by Mirrorvalese loyalists until he reached his majority. A long-lost heir was a romantic enough figure that he could stir an oppressed people to rebellion, particularly if that long-lost heir was backed by all the strength and power of a Changer creature.

  You care nothing for your country, then? her mentors had asked during the early days of her preparation. If you perform this task, Mirrorvale will lose its main protection and be subjugated by Sol Kardis in perpetuity. You accept that?

  Kai had only shrugged. She cared less than the snap of her fingers for the fate of Mirrorvale, or indeed Sol Kardis. She just wanted to see the Nightshade line destroyed. After that, nothing else mattered. And her genuine indifference must have convinced the Brotherhood, because here she was: about to fulfil her childhood dream and slay a dragon. It was of benefit to them to send her, after all. If she were caught, there’d be nothing to link her to Sol Kardis. She was simply a disaffected Mirrorvalese citizen with a grudge against the throne. Though it was clear that rumour of Kardise involvement had come to Darkhaven’s ears – and indeed, that was why she had fixed on Zander as a scapegoat – they would never be able to prove it.

  Of course, that wouldn’t be relevant once Ayla was dead. After that, Sol Kardis would be glad to show its hand. Because Ayla’s death would reveal Mirrorvale as no more than what it truly was: a tiny country that was as capable of standing against the might of its neighbours as a babe in arms against a grown man. It might take a few months for Arkannen to fall, with its rings and its gates and the Helm in Darkhaven. But fall it would, in the end. What would the Helm have left to fight for, once their overlord was dead and gone?

  Kai just had to get on with killing the monster.

  Ignoring the glassware and other paraphernalia scattered across the table, she went straight to her small, carved travelling chest. It had been almost laughably straightforward to get it into Darkhaven. She’d seen Bryan and Miles enter the fifth ring together on the first day of training; having identified Miles based on the conversation she’d overheard between Bryan and Ayla the day before, she’d fetched the chest and pretended to be struggling with it as she left the barracks. By that time, Miles had left Bryan at the training hall and was busy pulling his wheeled cart full of alchemist’s junk up towards the Gate of Ice. Once Kai had accidentally-on-purpose blundered into him and explained her intention to sell the chest in the first ring, he’d been more than eager to buy it from her – as she’d hoped. Because although the chest had been built to appeal to the Nightshade line, she’d guessed it would be equally fascinating to an alchemist. And although her original plan had been to send it to Ayla as an anonymous gift, sending it through Miles was far less suspicious. The Helm had searched it, of course, as they had everything else, but they hadn’t found anything untoward. No-one ever did.

  Then yesterday she’d asked Miles about the chest, casually, wondering whether he was finding it useful. Penn had been so reluctant to engage in any kind of normal human interaction that he’d missed that part of the conversation entirely. And during the subsequent chat, she’d learned all about Miles’s work with Ayla and – more importantly – where they carried it out.

  Now Kai opened the lid, pressed the hidden catches, and pulled her pistol from its weeks-long hiding place.

  As she prepared it, checking each part carefully to make sure it was unaffected by its long sojourn in hiding, she found she was humming softly. An old song, one from her childhood: one her father used to sing her, before he was murdered. Fitting that it should have crept into her head now, when she was about to aveng
e his death.

  She’d seen it happen. Her little family had all been at home, snug in their townhouse to the side of the market square, when the Firedrake came winging its way over the horizon. Just her father, her mother and her – that was how it had always been. Some of the other girls had siblings and cousins and aunts, but not Kai. We don’t need anyone else, her mother always said. We’ve got each other.

  That hadn’t seemed enough for her father, lately. He looked worried all the time, a permanent frown between his brows. Once or twice he’d even snapped at her, which he’d never done before. He’d always been the most patient and gentle of men.

  Don’t fret about him, Kai’s mother said. It’s just a bad business deal. It’ll work itself out. But the frown on her own face told a different story.

  And then the Firedrake arrived in town. Kai watched from her window in mingled awe and dread as it landed in the square, vast wings cutting the air, talons scraping against the stone. She gasped as the beast dissolved in a swirl of black smoke, to remake itself as a tall man with black hair, pale skin and piercing dark eyes. The mayor came running to his side. The tall man gave his orders. And the town militia came for Kai’s father.

  There were four of them, in the end, standing in front of the tall man. Kai was still young, so she didn’t understand everything that was said. Something about theft. Something about taxes. She huddled at her mother’s side with the rest of the crowd in the square, letting the words wash over her, and wondered when her father would be free to return home and finish their game of skipping-stones.

  The tall man said something. One of her father’s friends raised his voice in answer. The tall man snapped something else, and now they were all shouting, her father’s voice a familiar thread among the rest –

  And then the tall man swirled and shifted back into his Firedrake form, and let out a long, fierce jet of flame that swept across the four men like a fiery wave. People screamed. The crowd became a herd, scrabbling to retreat from danger, each fleeing for his life without regard for anyone around him. Kai started towards her father, but her mother grabbed her arm and pulled her back. The Firedrake lifted a clawed foot and raked one of her father’s friends from throat to guts. It seized a second in its mighty jaws, shaking him in a spray of blood. And then it reached her father –

  Kai saw it in her nightmares for years afterwards. The tearing. The inhuman screams. The spattering blood.

  She’d lived with her mother until the wasting disease took her, less than a year later. And then eleven-year-old Kai had turned her back on Arkannen, lair of the monster to whom she owed her vengeance, and travelled further south. Across the border to Sol Kardis, a country known for its hatred of Mirrorvale and Changers. She’d trained as an assassin for the Brotherhood in the mutual understanding that as soon as a way to kill Florentyn Nightshade was discovered, she would be the one to undertake the task.

  Only by the time the relevant knowledge finally came to light, Florentyn Nightshade was dead.

  Still, one Changer was much like another. A monster was still a monster, and the world would be a better place without any of them in it. Kai might not be able to revenge herself upon the man who’d killed her father, but she could certainly take his daughter’s life in payment.

  Once the pistol was primed and ready, she took the knife from the other secret compartment and slipped it into her belt; the pistol would do the job, but it was always wise to have a backup plan. Then she left the transformation room through a different door – the one that led deeper into Darkhaven, rather than back to the central square. Now all she had to do was find Ayla. And with the knowledge she’d gleaned from Miles, that wouldn’t take long.

  Time to slay the dragon.

  TWENTY-SIX

  By the time the hill that concealed Elisse’s cottage came into sight, Sorrow’s arms ached with the strain of keeping her unfamiliar vehicle on course, and her ears felt as if they’d never be free of the rattle and rumble of the engine – not to mention the continuous throbbing pain in her foot. One thing was for sure, these smaller airships weren’t nearly as comfortable as their larger counterparts. Nor were they as easy to control as they looked. It was a constant battle not to veer off in random directions, or nosedive into the earth.

  Still, she didn’t think the occupants of the other craft had noticed anything wrong. It was very hard to tell at a distance who was inside the gondola of an airship, so the Brotherhood’s men must be assuming that her skyboat was manned by the last two of their crew, as planned. And since the four or five craft that had taken off ahead of her had deliberately spread themselves out to make the journey – several independent ships being far less noticeable than a small fleet – they were unlikely to discover otherwise until they reached their destination. At that point, Sorrow would have to deviate from their path and land separately, but she hoped that because the Brotherhood were using unmarked skyboats of the kind that many wealthy people kept to travel swiftly around the country, they would simply conclude that they’d been mistaken regarding the identity of her ship.

  There was certainly no chance she could follow them all the way. By now, it was clear they were going to cut their engines and vent gas to make a quiet landing at the top of the hill – the exact scenario she’d imagined the last time she was with Elisse, in fact, which both satisfied and annoyed her. Anyway, it would be suicidal for Sorrow to do the same, because the ambush party was bound to wait until all the craft were down before approaching the cottage. And if they thought she was one of them now, they certainly wouldn’t think that once they saw her. So as she got nearer, she wrangled the airship round the side of the hill. She’d have to land in the meadow below the cottage, despite the steepness of the slope there. The trees and the building itself should conceal her from the party at the top of the hill, and with any luck she’d be able to get Elisse and Corus out before the Brotherhood’s men arrived.

  Great. Relying on luck again. Still, it’s got me this far.

  She circled round to approach the meadow from below, then – no time to waste – went in for the landing. But she’d misjudged it in the failing daylight, come in too fast. The skyboat bucked and plunged in the air like an unruly horse, before its envelope lurched sideways and the sheer weight of the gas dragged it off balance. Though she hauled on the controls with all her strength, nothing could stop the descent. And if the envelope ruptured and released its contents to be caught by a spark from the engine –

  Time to bail. As the ground rose swiftly up to meet her, Sorrow released her flying straps, grabbed the unlit gas lamp that served as a headlamp at night, and dived over the side of the gondola. She hit hard, driving all the breath from her lungs, but did her best to turn the awkward fall into a roll. After a gasping interval during which it felt like every single part of her body was slamming into jagged rocks, she jolted to a stop and looked up. The skyboat hadn’t met its end in a ball of fire, as she’d expected, but it was a wreck: the envelope listing and misshapen, the gondola crumpled beyond repair. She wouldn’t be able to nip in, fetch Elisse and Corus, then depart as quickly as she’d come. She’d stranded herself in enemy territory.

  A movement caught her eye, and she turned her head to see a couple of dark figures approaching stealthily through the trees that bordered the meadow. Either the ambushers had got down the hill really quickly, or the ones she’d followed had merely been the rearguard of a greater force. Still, she didn’t have time to think for long. If they found her, she’d be screwed. If they found the ruined aircraft – the noise of which had clearly caught their attention – without a pilot, they’d come looking for her and she’d still be screwed. So she grabbed the sparker from the gas lamp she was still clutching in both hands, lit it, and threw it into the gondola. Then, as noiselessly as she could, she wriggled over to the stream and dropped over the edge to lie flat in the shallow water.

  The airship exploded.

  All right, perhaps exploded was a strong word. But the whole thing
caught fire so suddenly and quickly that for the first time, Sorrow understood the true meaning of the phrase burst into flame. The heat of it was intense enough that it had its own sound, a sizzling roar that filled her ears. And then the envelope split open, releasing a further cloud of fire into the air, and bits of waxy-coated canvas rained down over everything. Sorrow put her hands on her head and waited for the world to stop burning.

  Once her ears were no longer ringing, she was able to make out a few snatches of the conversation between the dark figures. As she’d hoped, their consensus was that no-one could have survived the crash and subsequent blaze. Less happily, she also gathered that the cottage was completely surrounded. The Brotherhood hadn’t taken any chances. They’d sent enough snipers to cover every exit and more besides. The party she’d followed were tasked with entering the cottage and bringing out Corus.

  ‘And his mother?’ one of the men said.

  ‘Expendable. They want her alive if possible, but better she dies than we lose the boy.’

  Anger clenched Sorrow’s hands into tight fists. She considered simply walking up behind him and stabbing him in the back – she’d probably be able to take out the other one, too, before he recovered from his shock – but she fought down the vicious urge with an effort. It was important that she didn’t draw attention to herself. Maybe she’d have risked it if she still had her escape vehicle, but as it was …

  As it was, she needed to reach the cottage first.

  Of course, the entire Kardise attack team was between it and her, but she’d remembered the hole in the hedgerow. If she cut across the meadow and took down Elisse’s barrier, she’d have a chance of getting ahead. So she waited for the men to leave, before wriggling out of the stream and setting off at a run, hoping the contrast between the blazing airship and the dim evening light would help to conceal her. She kept her head low and put a zigzag in her route, just in case one of the snipers spotted her, but it was an unnecessary precaution. Sooner than she’d expected, she was at the meadow boundary. She worked her way along it, cursing silently at the prickly thorns, until she found the patched-up hole. After that, it was a quick enough task to dismantle the barrier and push her way through to the other side –