by Rob May
Then the weight and pain lessened unexpectedly. Oh no. Don’t toy with me. Please don’t.
She opened her eyes. The young dragon was standing before her, frozen in position. A sword blade was protruding from its chest.
As the dragon fell limply to the side, Kalina tried to make sense of the figure standing before her brandishing the enormous sword. He was dressed in tattered, blackened clothes, and a thick layer of grey mud and ash covered his face and clumped in his hair. But there was something familiar about his stance; something that Kalina had seen every day for the past couple of years.
Refuge's schoolmaster had stepped in to save her …
‘Ben!’ she gasped.
IV.iii
The Cave
‘Wait a minute,’ Rafe said as they clambered up the rocky mountainside. ‘Ben? Do you mean Benedict?’
‘That’s him,’ Kal said.
‘Senator Godsword?’
‘The very same.’
‘Benedict Godsword used to be a village schoolmaster?’ Rafe looked perplexed. ‘But he’s the richest man in Amaranthium!’
‘This was before he came into his inheritance,’ Kal laughed.
‘But … the story goes that he was out adventuring during those years, making his fortune …’
‘Teaching can be a great adventure,’ she mused. ‘Shush now, we’re almost at the cave.’
They had found themselves under a wide stone plateau that ran under the bottom of the cave like a shelf. Kal looked for a way up, but there was no obvious route. But the texture of the rock here was pitted and lumpy like coral; Kal reckoned that she could climb it.
‘Wait here,’ she instructed Rafe. ‘I’m going up for a look.’
‘Be careful,’ he said, letting her climb up his body to get past the shelf’s overhang. Kal climbed using mainly the strength in her arms, jamming her fingers into the depressions in the rock, and placing her cuchuck-soled boots on whatever convenient flat surface she could find. She felt strong and secure, but she was aware that if she fell she would probably bounce past Rafe and roll half a mile back down the mountain.
She looked down and gave him a reassuring smile. Then, without warning, the mountain shuddered, causing Kal’s legs to slip out from under her. Her left hand left the rockface, leaving her hanging by just three of the fingers of her right hand. Far above her, up above the cave, a spurt of bright orange and yellow flame burst from the peak of the mountain, blasting fifty feet into the air. Then almost as suddenly as it had begun, the shaking ceased and the flame died away. Kal found her footing again and gripped the rock as tightly as she could.
‘Kal!’ Rafe shouted. Don’t shout, you idiot! Without looking down, she waved a dismissive hand at him and continued her climb. They had seen a similar flame two nights back as they stood amid the ruins of the governor’s villa. She had wondered back then if it was some kind of warning aimed at them. Had they been spotted now, or did the flame carry some other significance? She tried to put it out of her mind so that she could concentrate on her ascent.
Ten long minutes later she made it to the top. She gripped the edge of the shelf with the fingertips of both hands and slowly raised her upper body until her eyes could see over. The sun was shining from behind her, flooding the massive cave with light. Kal could see almost every detail of everything in there.
Her eyes widened. What she saw was hundreds of armed men lined up in ranks beneath the outspread wings of the dragon.
She could barely take it all in at once. Her arms were crying out in pain from the effort of lifting her head, but she forced herself to remain still while her brain clarified what her eyes were telling her. Firstly, the armed men were not men at all; they were the tall warriors with the brutish faces that she and Rafe had encountered back on the mainland: hobgoblins! And secondly, the dragon …
… was a dragon formed from canvas stretched over a wooden frame. A dragon with swords for claws and lanterns for eyes. With ropes for ligaments, pulleys for joints and sails for wings. It loomed silently over the mass of troops. They stood with their back to it, focusing their attention instead on the figure who was passing in front of them, inspecting the front rank. This one towered over even the tallest of the soldiers, and his great bulk was covered in a frighteningly-styled harness of black and gold armour. The edges of the overlapping plates were curved and pointed: decorations, Kal figured, that would also serve to deflect and entangle weapons. The helmet was magnificent, a roaring dragon head with red jewels for eyes. Kal couldn’t see the face behind the long gold teeth, but she had no doubt as to who it was.
She allowed her complaining muscles to relax, and she made her way carefully back down to Rafe.
‘Did you see the dragon?’ he asked her.
‘No,’ she said between breaths. ‘Gron Darklaw. He has an army of hobgoblins … or whatever those strange half-man, half-goblin creeps are.’ She wiped the sweat from her eyes. ‘And also a big flying machine. That’s how he managed to convince everyone that there’s a dragon on the island.’
‘A flying machine?’ Rafe said. ‘I don’t understand.’
Kal tried to explain. ‘Like a big black dragon-shaped kite, with a seat in the head for a rider. They must glide on the hot winds and heat from the flames. It looked like an amazing contraption.’
Rafe seemed angry at this news. ‘What is Darklaw up to?’
‘I can guess,’ Kal said. ‘With a combination of gold, soldiers and a secret base that no one dares approach, Darklaw’s dreams of becoming governor of Balibu are all too likely to come true. The gods know why he wants it so bad, but that’s not our problem. We have to get back to the mainland and warn people.’
‘Wait a minute, Kal,’ Rafe said, grabbing her arm as she turned to head back down the mountain. ‘You want to leave?’
‘I’m not taking on an army,’ she shrugged. ‘I may be foolhardy, but I’m not suicidal.’
‘Warning the town isn’t going to do any good,’ Rafe argued. ‘You said yourself that the garrison is a load of drunks and layabouts. Balibu is Darklaw’s for the taking, whether we warn them or not.’
‘So we leave town before things kick off. Get back home and let Ben and the Senate muster the legions to take care of it.’
‘Or,’ Rafe said, ‘we take out Darklaw right now. An army is useless without a leader.’
Kal sighed. You proud fool.
‘Believe me,’ she said, ‘I’d love to gut Darklaw as much as you would, but fighting my way through a thousand armed freaks to get to him is not part of my job description. We both came to find out what was going on here, and now we know; so come on, let’s get going while we still can.’
She started off down the slope, but Rafe remained behind, He was staring up at the very peak of the mountain, where steam was drifting out in the wake of the flame. ‘There might be another way in,’ he said. ‘The kind of secret sneaky way that you like. And if we sort this out on our own, Kal, then the secret of the gold mine won’t reach the ears of the Senate. I know that you’d hate it if all this wealth got confiscated by a load of greedy politicians.’
Kal paused in her descent. Rafe knew her weaknesses as well as she knew his.
‘I came here to slay a dragon, Kal,’ he said as she came back up to rejoin him. ‘Gron Darklaw is my dragon now.’
IV.iv
The Blade of Banos
Ben reached down and pulled Kalina up by the hand. She screamed as her arm bent at an unnatural angle. The schoolmaster let go and took her by the other arm instead. With Kalina in one hand, and his massive sword in the other, he slid and skidded down the side of the dragon’s nest. The roiling smoke that swathed around the base of the bonfire hid them from goblins in the immediate vicinity, and from the adult dragon circling above them, too. They heard its terrible shriek and the thunder of its wings as it sought them out.
Kalina’s legs shook beneath her as Ben dragged her through the ash. The dragon flew low overhead, hunting for them in the smoke.
She could see the hunched, shambling shapes of goblins all around them. She was hurting all over and was about to vomit when Ben stopped moving and flicked up a heavy trapdoor with the point of his sword. He lowered Kalina down and jumped in after her. When he pulled the trapdoor shut and drew the heavy bolt across, they found themselves in total darkness.
Kalina crumpled and lay in a ball, moaning and groaning despite herself. She could hear Ben moving about in the darkness knocking things over. There was a flickering light, and she could see him stirring up what looked like a copper bath full of hot ashes. He lit a lantern from the embers and hung it from a hook in the beams above them. Kalina noticed that they were surrounded by ale kegs and stacked wooden furniture. She guessed that they were in the cellar of the village inn, The White Horse.
She hauled herself over to a straw-packed mattress in the corner. Ben stowed his sword in an empty barrel and came over to inspect her wounds. He touched Kalina’s arm, causing her to cry out. ‘Your shoulder’s dislocated,’ he said. ‘Might as well fix it now if we’re going to fix it at all.’ He took her wrist and held her arm out at a right angle to her body. As Ben started twisting slowly, Kalina felt a wave of nausea wash over her; she turned her head and was sick onto the flagstones. She had barely finished spitting when she heard a solid thunk.
‘That seemed to work,’ Ben said. ‘Give me your other arm.’ Kalina gasped as Ben poured half a bottle of clear spirit all over the bite wounds on her forearm. When he was done, he sat back and took a long swig from the bottle himself. ‘That’s the strongest zalka I’ve ever drunk,’ he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘Want some?’
Kalina shook her head and then collapsed into an unconscious daze.
* * *
She woke up some time later. It could have been hours. Ben was sitting in a chair nearby, drinking from a different bottle. He looked as tired and filthy as Kalina felt herself. She noticed he had bandaged up her arm with a relatively clean rag.
‘Hey Mooney,’ he said with a faint smile. ‘You obviously didn’t get my note then. School is closed for the foreseeable future.’
‘Ben,’ she groaned. ‘Is there anyone else alive?’
He shook his head. ‘No. And I’ve had a very good look. Where were you hiding?’
‘In the forest, but I didn’t dare go far. The dragon was always out and about hunting. What about you? Have you been hiding down here the whole time?’
Ben drained the last few drops of liquor from his bottle. ‘I was out fishing when I saw the goblins heading down to the village. I should have run, but no; I came back, too.’
‘What for?’
Ben nodded at the sword sticking out of the barrel. ‘Family heirloom,’ he said. ‘I’m nothing without it.’
Kalina remembered the times she had seen Ben charging around the schoolhouse, whirling the sword above his head, enthralling the children with stories about old gods and old kings.
‘The Blade of Banos,’ she said. ‘Right. Well, you did always say that only the weapons of the gods can kill dragons.’ She recalled all the other toys and props that had filled the classroom. ‘It’s too bad I dropped and smashed the Stone of Draxos the other week; we could have teleported right out of here.’
They both froze as a heavy thump shook the cellar. They could hear the dragon roaring directly above them, and other screams and howls that could only have belonged to the goblins.
‘What are we going to do, Ben?’
‘We’ll just have to make a run for it when we get the chance,’ he said. ‘The ash will help. I found out that dragons are blind to you if you’re covered in it.’
Kalina felt a small spark of hope. ‘Really? You never mentioned that in all your dragon stories.’
‘The stories were all wrong, Kal,’ Ben said. ‘I found that out the hard way. You should have seen me screaming and shouting at the dragon, thinking that I could talk to it, but it just screeched and flapped at me like a wild animal. I dived into an ash pile to avoid being fed to its baby. That was a lucky escape.’
Like a wild animal …
‘Ben,’ she said, ‘the goblins …’
‘I know, I know,’ he said. ‘They’re not the dragon’s minions at all; it’s the other way round. When I followed the goblins down into the village, I saw them setting the fires. They lured the dragon here with fire, Kal. They built the nest and the dragon brought its egg down from the mountains. Now it will render this region desolate for miles in all directions. It’s the ultimate weapon, and somehow the goblins know exactly how to control it.’
Kalina stood up slowly. ‘It doesn’t sound like they do anymore, though,’ she said. She limped over to the trapdoor. ‘Just a quick look,’ she promised when Ben rose to his feet nervously. She drew back the bolt and lifted the trap a fraction of an inch. Outside it was chaos: the dragon was tearing its nest apart in a destructive fury, its thick tail whipping up clouds of smoke and ash. Goblins were trying to flee, but the dragon had turned on them, lurching from one corner of the razed ground to the other to cut off their escape. Kalina watched in fascination as the creature simultaneously crushed two goblins to death in each of its claws, while tearing the head off another with its jaws.
And forgotten amid the mad frenzy of destruction, covered in an ever-thickening layer of ash, a still, black winged shape lay crumpled up in a pool of dark red blood.
Kalina pulled the trap shut and turned to Ben. ‘We might be stuck down here for a while,’ she said.
IV.v
Invasion
Kal scrambled up the final slope. Five thousand feet above sea-level, the summit of the mountain was a flat, circular plain about a hundred feet in diameter, as if a conical peak had once been lopped off by a destructive giant. There was not one, but several fissures in the black rock of the mountain, from which columns of grey steam drifted upwards into the still, blue sky. The smell of brimstone made Kal want to gag, and it was very, very hot: standing between the mountain and the brutal sun was like being caught between a hammer and an anvil.
Looking back, Kal could see the faint green blur of the mainland on the northern horizon. While she waited for Rafe to join her, she walked slowly round the edge of the summit and looked down on the opposite side of the mountain to which they had arrived. There was a natural harbour below, formed out of two massive arms of rock that threatened to touch, but allowed just enough room that a skilfully navigated vessel might be able to slip through. She couldn’t see Darklaw’s sloop, but there were five larger galleys moored up. A cleared channel led inland through the swamps, and a series of locks and gates rose to where a scattering of wooden structures at the foot of the mountain marked the entrance to the gold mine.
Rafe caught up with her. ‘So if it’s not magic then,’ he asked her, ‘what is it made of?’ He was still thinking about the story that she had been telling him on the climb up.
‘Bloodsteel, or so Ben told me,’ Kal said. ‘The gods apparently had a forge at the very top of the Improbable Mountain, and they made blades from the red ore they mined there.’
Rafe whistled. ‘The Blade of Banos! What I wouldn’t give to fight with it.’
‘It’s too old and brittle now,’ Kal said. ‘I wouldn’t trust you with it, the way you fight. You’d probably break it on a hobgoblin’s collar bone. Forget about the sword and let’s see if we can find a way down into this mountain.’
They approached the largest of the fissures. As well as the steam, a hot wind was blowing up out of it too. As they stood there contemplating the void, the mountain trembled, and tongues of flame briefly licked at the air above the hole. They didn’t spurt as high as the ones Kal had seen earlier when she was climbing to the cave, but they were hot enough to cook anyone who got too close.
Rafe gave her a nervous look. ‘Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea …’
‘It was a great idea,’ she told him as she took her rope from her shoulder. ‘Did you notice how the flames formed above the hole; the gases
must only ignite when they hit the air. I bet that we will be safer down there than up here. Give me your rope.’
Kal tied both of their ropes together with two overhand knots, looped them over a solid rock, then let both ends drop down into the darkness. She took two small items out of a pouch at her belt and handed one to Rafe. He examined it carefully; it was a steel tool forged in the shape of a figure of eight.
‘Loop the rope through like this,’ Kal instructed, ‘and then hook it to your belt. The friction will slow your descent.’ With a torch in her left hand, she hopped backwards into the fissure and started walking confidently down the sheer rockface. ‘Hold the rope here by your hip to control your speed,’ she called up to Rafe, ‘and don’t let go!’
A hundred feet down, Kal found a ledge that was safe enough to stand on. When Rafe eventually made it down too, she tugged on one end of the rope. The other end shot upwards, passed around the anchoring rock at the top, then fell back down into her hands. She wiped the sweat from her brow and smiled at her companion. ‘Ready to do that again?’ she asked as she looped the rope around a new anchor.
Rafe didn’t look quite so anxious this time. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘I was just getting used to it.’
Kal kissed him before she dropped down deeper into the dark mountain.
At the bottom of the next descent they found themselves at a junction of several tunnels and chasms. They shouldered their ropes once more and decided to explore the route with the gentlest gradient. A hot wind blew in their faces as they walked, and it threatened to extinguish their torch. The rock was almost too hot to touch; they could feel its heat through their boots. Kal was sure that she heard voices being carried up on the wind, too. After another couple of spots where they had to use the ropes, she reckoned that they must be approaching the level of Darklaw’s cave. But they could hit a dead end or too narrow a gap at any moment; there might not be a way through after all.