The Legion of Flame

by Anthony Ryan

  ACE BOOKS BY ANTHONY RYAN

  THE RAVEN’S SHADOW NOVELS

  Blood Song

  Tower Lord

  Queen of Fire

  THE DRACONIS MEMORIA

  The Waking Fire

  The Legion of Flame

  ACE

  Published by Berkley

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014

  Copyright © 2017 by Anthony Ryan

  Penguin Random House supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for every reader.

  ACE is a registered trademark and the A colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Ryan, Anthony, author.

  Title: The legion of flame / Anthony Ryan.

  Description: First edition. | New York : Ace, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, 2017. | Series: The Draconis memoria : book 2

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017005849 (print) | LCCN 2017014642 (ebook) | ISBN 9781101987902 (ebook) | ISBN 9781101987896 (hardcover)

  Subjects: | GSAFD: Fantasy fiction.

  Classification: LCC PR6118.Y3523 (ebook) | LCC PR6118.Y3523 L43 2017 (print) | DDC 823/.92—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017005849

  First Edition: June 2017

  Cover illustration by Larry Rostant

  Cover photographs: lace trim © antipathique/Shutterstock; fire frame © Alexander Chernyakov / iStockphoto; smoke © Honchar Roman / Shutterstock; sextant © Morphart Creation / Shutterstock

  Cover design by Judith Lagerman

  Cover and interior maps by Anthony Ryan

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Version_1

  For Robin, Norman and Nick,

  because once upon a time we fought the good fight.

  CONTENTS

  Ace Books by Anthony Ryan

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Maps

  PART I: The Reaping CHAPTER 1: Sirus

  CHAPTER 2: Lizanne

  CHAPTER 3: Hilemore

  CHAPTER 4: Lizanne

  CHAPTER 5: Hilemore

  CHAPTER 6: Sirus

  CHAPTER 7: Lizanne

  CHAPTER 8: Clay

  CHAPTER 9: Lizanne

  CHAPTER 10: Sirus

  CHAPTER 11: Lizanne

  CHAPTER 12: Clay

  CHAPTER 13: Lizanne

  CHAPTER 14: Hilemore

  CHAPTER 15: Lizanne

  CHAPTER 16: Clay

  PART II: Beneath a Starless Sky CHAPTER 17: Sirus

  CHAPTER 18: Lizanne

  CHAPTER 19: Clay

  CHAPTER 20: Lizanne

  CHAPTER 21: Clay

  CHAPTER 22: Lizanne

  CHAPTER 23: Sirus

  CHAPTER 24: Clay

  CHAPTER 25: Lizanne

  CHAPTER 26: Clay

  CHAPTER 27: Lizanne

  CHAPTER 28: Clay

  CHAPTER 29: Lizanne

  CHAPTER 30: Hilemore

  CHAPTER 31: Clay

  CHAPTER 32: Lizanne

  CHAPTER 33: Sirus

  PART III: The Gathering Call CHAPTER 34: Clay

  CHAPTER 35: Lizanne

  CHAPTER 36: Clay

  CHAPTER 37: Lizanne

  CHAPTER 38: Clay

  CHAPTER 39: Lizanne

  CHAPTER 40: Clay

  CHAPTER 41: Hilemore

  CHAPTER 42: Lizanne

  CHAPTER 43: Sirus

  CHAPTER 44: Clay

  CHAPTER 45: Lizanne

  CHAPTER 46: Clay

  CHAPTER 47: Hilemore

  CHAPTER 48: Clay

  CHAPTER 49: Lizanne

  CHAPTER 50: Sirus

  CHAPTER 51: Clay

  CHAPTER 52: Sirus

  Appendix I: Dramatis Personae

  Appendix II: The Rules of Pastazch

  About the Author

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Once again, thanks to my proofreader, Paul Field; my agent, Paul Lucas, for his diplomatic skills; and my US and UK editors, Jessica Wade and James Long, for their valuable input on the first draft.

  I

  THE REAPING

  FAMED SOCIETY BEAUTY PERISHES IN ASYLUM INFERNO

  Widespread Mourning for “Queen of Mandinorian Society”

  Charmed Life Ends in Madness and Flame

  The wealthy Dewsmine family is in mourning today after the tragic demise of their most celebrated daughter—the once-beautiful and -charming Catheline, aged twenty-five. It scarcely seems credible that less than four years ago this very periodical named Catheline Dewsmine as the uncrowned Queen of Mandinorian Society. A glittering and vivacious presence at any ball or managerial gathering, Catheline garnered many admirers, and not a few sharp-tongued enemies, in her meteoric rise to societal eminence. This humble correspondent has heard her described as both “a soul of celestial grace and boundless generosity” and “a venomous, razor-taloned harpy whose back never met a mattress it didn’t like.” Whatever the truth, it is plain that, with her passing, Mandinorian society will be a much less interesting place.

  The Dewsmine family dates its prominence back to the days of empire when the family fortunes were largely derived from various landholdings granted by Queen Arrad III in recognition for service in war against the Corvantines. With the advent of the Corporate Age the family was one of the first aristocratic dynasties to purchase shares in the then-nascent Ironship Syndicate. Over the succeeding decades their fortunes prospered thanks to ever-increasing profits derived from the Syndicate’s Arradsian holdings. Not content to simply enjoy the fruits of a sound investment, the family have never shirked their managerial responsibilities. Every son or daughter bearing the Dewsmine name is expected to enter the Syndicate at a junior level on the assumption that their inherent gifts of ambition and intelligence will see them rise to a more suitable station. Several such scions have even risen to occupy a seat on the Board.

  Catheline Dewsmine was to prove a spectacular exception to this rule, much (it is rumoured) to the dismay of her parents. No family, be they ever so grand, is exempt from the Blood-lot, and the Blessing is no respecter of station. Whereas, amongst those families of less fortunate rank the identification of a Blood-blessed child is invariably seen as a route from gutter to prosperity, for a child of the managerial class it is often regarded as a curse that will inevitably sever their links with family, friends and a share of dynastic wealth. However, subsequent to the Blood-lot revealing her true nature, this was not to be the case with Catheline. When called upon to pack her things and travel to Arradsia for enrolment in the Ironship Academy of Female Education she promptly refused and threw what a former e
mployee of the Dewsmine mansion described to this correspondent as “the great-grandfather of all screaming fits.” Although every entity in the corporate world is bound by the accords regulating the education and employment of the Blood-blessed, the Dewsmine family, thanks to a good deal of expensive legal counsel and an inventive interpretation of Company Law, were able to secure an “exceptional release” from standard regulatory practice on the grounds that Catheline was of too “delicate a disposition” to cope with such a savage wrenching from the bosom of her family.

  So, instead of spending years learning the proper employment of her gifts under the expert eye of the renowned Academy’s staff, Catheline received a private education at home from various Blood-blessed tutors. Although she would rarely display her gifts in public many accounts speak of Catheline’s particular facility for the use of Red, one servant relating how she could light a candle from fifty yards away whilst another described an incident in which she incinerated an entire orchard during a fit of pique. It should be pointed out in the interests of balanced reporting that the Dewsmine family denies this latter incident ever took place.

  Catheline’s unique position was sure to arouse interest from press and public alike and her progress through adolescence became a novelty item in many a periodical that saw fit to print recurring—and recurrently denied—tales of roasted kittens, eviscerated puppies and maids being propelled through upper-floor windows. Since no legal action ever arose from these supposed incidents their veracity cannot be ascertained. However, this correspondent has noted that several former employees of the Dewsmine mansion do live very comfortably in retirement despite disabilities arising from long-term injury.

  Catheline’s status as an interesting if unimportant curiosity was to change with her first appearance at a prominent managerial gathering. Aged just seventeen but already blossomed into what a fellow correspondent described as “the near perfection of womanly loveliness,” Catheline simply enchanted all who attended the annual Introductory Ball at the Sanorah Banqueting Hall. Rumour has it she received no less than six marriage proposals in the course of the following week, all from notable executives of impressive standing, one of whom was apparently already married. However, Catheline was not to be so easily wooed and her glittering if brief career as the pinnacle of Mandinorian Society was marked by a complete absence of any engagement or serious romantic entanglement (rumours of less-than-serious entanglements abound, but such gossip is beneath the pen of this correspondent).

  Within the space of a year Catheline had become the required guest for any serious gathering and garnered a considerable income from endorsements for various fashion houses and cosmetic concerns. Soon her photostat appeared everywhere, although the images often failed to capture the near-ethereal nature of her beauty, something which could only be appreciated if one were fortunate enough to find oneself in her proximity. More than simply the conformity of feature to accepted notions of beauty, Catheline exuded a sense of otherness. At the risk of laying oneself open to charges of hyperbole, this correspondent is of the opinion that, through some agency of her Blood-blessed gifts, Catheline had somehow transcended mundane humanity. More than one witness has commented on the addictive nature of her company, the sense of being transfixed whenever her gaze fell upon one’s eye, the near-desperate desire to remain in her presence and the bereft lurch of the heart upon separation.

  Sadly, it was all to end much too soon. The first sign that all might not be well in Catheline’s world came during her twentieth birthday party, a truly lavish occasion funded entirely by the Clothing and Accessories arm of the Alebond Commodities Conglomerate. By all accounts Catheline remained her usual compelling, enchanting self for much of the evening, despite an ugly incident when one of her suitors became overly insistent on pressing his case and had to be forcibly removed. Whether it was this episode that upset her, or some previously hidden malady of the mind, none can say. In either case, towards the end of the evening Catheline Dewsmine began to speak gibberish. It started as a mutter, low and guttural, the words indistinct but the tone of it still retains the power to chill this correspondent’s bones some five years later. That this was not the first such incident was made plain by the alacrity with which Catheline’s family began to usher her from the ball-room, something that seemed to unhinge her completely. Her mutters became screams, her perfect face an ugly, crimson mask. She flailed, she spat and she bit as they dragged her away, her words echoing in the shocked silence left in her wake. I have never forgotten them: “He calls to me! He promises me the world!”

  Catheline Dewsmine was never seen in public again. All enquiries regarding her condition were sternly rebuffed by her family though servants later related a horrible interval during which her parents attempted to care for her at home. Doctors of both mind and body came and went, various concoctions were administered, novel and experimental distillations of Green applied. All to no avail. Reliable witness accounts agree that by this stage Catheline was completely and incurably mad. By the advent of her twenty-first birthday she had been committed to the Ventworth Home for the Emotionally Troubled, an Ironship-sponsored institution specialising in the care and treatment of those Blood-blessed suffering mental affliction. Soon Catheline faded almost completely from the public mind, save as a vehicle for the occasional cruel witticism or unkind cartoon, and perhaps would have been forgotten completely but for the terrible events of two days hence.

  The origins of the fire that engulfed the Ventworth Home are yet to be established. For reasons that should be obvious not one drop of Product is ever permitted on the premises and all patients are subject to close monitoring. What is clear is that at approximately two hours past midnight an intense conflagration broke out in the building’s west wing and soon spread to all parts of the structure. Only six members of the staff and three patients escaped. Tragically, Catheline was not amongst them. An initial report by the Ironship Protectorate Fire and Safety Executive confirms that the blaze began within the building but no cause has as yet been ascertained. Also, a full count of the dead is not possible due to the condition of the remains.

  And so, Catheline Dewsmine, once a Queen of sorts, and an unparalleled beauty, leaves this world in as ugly a fashion as can be imagined. Her light no longer shines upon us, and in the opinion of this humble correspondent, the world is a much darker place as a consequence.

  Lead article in the Sanorah Intelligencer—35th Verester 1600 (Company Year 211)—by Sigmend Talwick, Senior Correspondent.

  CHAPTER 1

  Sirus

  He awoke to Katrya weeping again. Soft whimpers in the darkness. She had learned by now not to sob, for which Sirus was grateful. Majack had threatened to strangle her that first night as they all huddled together in the stinking torrent, Katrya pressed against Sirus, holding tight as she wept seemingly endless tears.

  “Shut her up!” Majack had growled, levering himself away from the green-slimed sewer wall. His uniform was in tatters and he had lost his rifle somewhere in the chaos above. But he was a large man and his soldier’s hands seemed very strong as he lurched towards them, reaching for Katrya’s sodden blouse, hissing, “Quiet, you silly bitch!”

  He’d stopped as Sirus’s knife pressed into the meaty flesh below his chin. “Leave her be,” he whispered, wondering at the steadiness of his own voice. The knife, a wide-bladed butcher’s implement from the kitchen of his father’s house, was dark red from tip to handle, a souvenir from the start of their journey to this filthy refuge.

  Majack bared his teeth in a defiant snarl, eyes meeting those of the youth with the gory knife and seeing enough dire promise to let his hands fall. “She’ll bring them down here,” he grated.

  “Then you had better hope you can run faster than us,” Sirus told him, removing the knife and tugging Katrya deeper into the tunnel. He held her close, whispering comforting lies into her ear until the sobs faded into a piteous mewling.

  There
had been ten of them that first night, ten desperate souls huddling in the subterranean filth as Morsvale died above. Despite Majack’s fears their enemies had not been drawn to the sound of Katrya’s sobs. Not then and not the night after. Judging by the continuing cacophony audible through the grates, Sirus suspected that the invaders had found sufficient sport to amuse themselves, at least for the time being. But, of course, that didn’t last.

  Ten became nine on the fifth day when hunger drove them out in search of supplies. They waited until nightfall before scurrying forth from a drain on Ticker Street where most of the city’s grocers plied their trade. At first all seemed quiet, no piercing cries of alarm from a disturbed drake, no patrols of Spoiled to chase them back into the filth. Majack broke down a shop-door and they filled several sacks with onions and potatoes. Sirus had wanted to head back but the others, increasingly convinced by the continual quiet that the monsters had gone, decided to take a chance on a near by butcher’s shop. They were making their way back along a narrow alley towards Hailwell Market, laden with haunches of beef and pork, when it happened.

  A sudden rattling growl, the brief blur of a flashing tail and one of their number was gone. She had been a middle-aged woman from some minor administrative post in the Imperial Ring, her last words a garbled plea for help before the drake dragged her over the edge of the roof-top above. They hadn’t waited to hear the screams, fleeing back to their grimy refuge and dropping half their spoils in haste. Once back underground they fled deeper into the sewers. Simleon, a stick-thin youth of criminal leanings, had some familiarity with the maze of pipes and tunnels, leading them to the central hub where the various water-ways converged to cast effluent into a great shaft where it would be carried out to sea. At first the roaring torrent had been filthy, but as the days passed the water grew ever more clean.

  “Think there’s anyone left?” Majack muttered one day. Sirus reckoned it to be a month or more after their abortive foray, it was hard to keep track of the days here. Majack’s dull-eyed gaze was lost in the passing waters. The soldier’s previous hostility had subsided into a listless depression Sirus knew to be born of hunger and despair. Despite the strictness with which they rationed themselves, they had perhaps two more days before the food ran out.