The Dread Wyrm

by Miles Cameron

  She might have let go, but high in the light of the aethereal, Gabriel pulled. And out of the shadow of death, she rose.

  She found her bridge—she perceived herself as under it, drowning in power, in potentia, and she swam—she had never seen power like this—

  He was on her bridge. He grasped her by both hands and lifted, and she had her feet on solid ground. The aethereal was more a dream state than a physical reality—she had, simultaneously, never left her bridge and now more fully occupied it.

  He looked at her. “Your bridge is a particularly complex metaphor,” he said. “I don’t think I could fall off my palace, but then, I can’t see how I’d get back in, either.”

  She laughed—the sheer embrace of life. She reached out into the real. She wanted the real, and breath, and hope—

  The King was still dead, two arms’ lengths away, and the archbishop was bent over his body. Behind Amicia, out in the sandy length of the lists, the Green Knight stood over the body of his dead foe.

  For a moment, everything was balanced.

  Then the archbishop raised his head. “They killed the King!” he shouted, in passable Alban. His vaguely pointing hand was accusatory. And it pointed in the direction of the Green Knight, standing over his adversary.

  Du Corse put a small horn to his lips and blew.

  The man in the red hood raised a small shield. It was the first open display of hermetical talent of the day and people screamed. There was a stampede from the stands—above her, the men and women in the topmost rows began to fight to get out, and the stands moved—first resounding like a drum and then developing a motion—a swaying—

  Amicia got off the lower rung of benches, hiked her kirtle, and ran. Ser Gelfred had told her to make for the western end of the lists, the red pavilion. It was hard to miss, and she was not afraid to stretch her legs. Hundreds of people—half the gentry of the home counties—were running.

  But behind her, before she could go ten full strides, the stands began to collapse. Screams of fear changed to animal pain.

  Amicia stopped. She looked back, into the cloud of dust. The length of a horse away, to her right, the archbishop was clear of the ruin of the royal box and the stands and was giving orders—his voice had a hint of hysteria, but men and women were obeying. Du Corse was using the spear in his hand to push men into line, making a box of foot soldiers around the archbishop.

  A heavy arrow fell from the sky and struck a Gallish foot soldier to the ground. The arrow struck the top of his head and went through his helmet and through his skull.

  Nor were the soldiers the only targets. Someone was dropping arrows into the screaming survivors of the collapse of the stands.

  She smelled smoke.

  Ser Gabriel stood alone in the middle of the lists. It took him too long to fully recover his senses, and he felt exhausted—the pain in his back from the moth, the sudden drain of ops—

  It took him too long to register that the stands had collapsed, were afire, and someone was shooting into them. More than one man.

  “Fuck,” he said distinctly.

  His plan was shredding away into chaos. He’d lost Amicia in the dust—and now, smoke—and he suspected that Bad Tom and Michael were doing exactly what they’d planned—riding like fury for Lorica.

  His plan hadn’t included being on foot without a horse in the middle of a disaster.

  Habit made him wipe his blade clean. Only the last four inches had tasted blood, and he used de Rohan’s surcoat.

  Sheathed his sword. He did these simple tasks while his senses took in the chaos around him and he tried to make sense of it.

  He could feel Amicia was casting. He felt her work almost directly, so closely were they linked.

  She was healing.

  “Son of a bitch,” he muttered.

  But he could sense where she was.

  Amicia was a woman who believed things, and let her beliefs shape her actions.

  She knew the possible consequences of lingering. But she was a healer, and hundreds of people were injured—maybe thousands. She made herself turn and go back to the stands. She found a middle-aged woman with a broken arm, and mended it, and helped the woman find her daughter, a child—neck broken but horrifyingly still alive.

  This is why God made me, Amicia thought. She prayed, and as she prayed, she worked.

  Wat Tyler continued to drop arrows. No one stopped him. In fact, people ran from him as if he’d attacked them, or merely averted their eyes.

  When he’d dropped his last heavy arrow, he turned to find a dozen men and two young women watching—watching as if it were something entertaining.

  “It’s time we strike back,” he said.

  “Against the Galles?” one of the women asked him.

  “Against them all, honey.” Tyler wished he had more arrows. He’d never really thought he’d get the King—the fucking King. And he’d always imagined a hundred enraged men-at-arms coming at him like dogs on a wounded hart. Not this—a half-empty field and no foes. A hundred yards away, the collapse of the stands had shattered any organization, and he had done his part.

  He turned to leave. His handful of new recruits were still loosing arrows—he could see one, even now, skidding in the air because Luke had plucked his string. He looked back. “I’m a Jack,” he said. “We mean to pull all the nobles down and have a government without them. Any of you want to come—it’s a hard, thankless life. And when they recover from today, they’ll hunt us like wolves.” He grinned. “Except that we bite back.”

  One man muttered that he’d just killed innocent men and women.

  “No one is innocent,” Tyler spat. “They take our land and our silver and years off our lives. Kill them all, comrade. The babes and the mothers, too.”

  The prettier girl—the one with almond eyes and red-blond hair and a fine wool overgown—started kirtling up her skirts. “I’ll come with you,” she said. “I can use a bow, too.” She didn’t smile—she looked grim as death. “I’m Lessa,” she said.

  “You’re too fine to make a Jack,” he said.

  “Try me,” she said. She didn’t toss her head or flirt. Out on the sand, the archbishop’s men were becoming visible as the dust settled and Tyler wished he had a dozen more arrows.

  “I live with beggars and I move fast and if you slow me, I’ll leave you,” he said to her.

  She shrugged.

  Two of the men nodded. They were more his usual recruits—thickset, stubby-fingered ploughmen in thick wool, who stank of unwashed bodies from a yard away. They had heavy staffs and big leather bags.

  “Take us, too,” one said. They looked like enough to be brothers.

  “Sam,” said one.

  “Tom,” said the other.

  Tyler liked the looks of both of them. “It’s a hard life,” he said.

  “Try pushing the master’s plough,” said Sam. “Let’s kill ’em all.”

  Tom clearly liked the looks of the girl.

  Tyler winded his horn. Some of the episcopal soldiers looked his way, but he had to give the signal or some new clod would die.

  Then, without another word, he ran north, into the clear air. There was a tree line past the black smithery, about two hundred paces. His rendezvous point.

  He was a little surprised when he looked back to see five of them follow him.

  The stands were well-ablaze. At the north end of the stands, a crowd had gathered—as best he could tell, they were pulling survivors from the smoke and broken timbers.

  “Where’s the Queen?” the archbishop demanded. “Get her, and put her to death.”

  What Du Corse might have hesitated to do an hour before now seemed to make better sense. He blew his horn three more times, and more and more of his men-at-arms began to rally. His standard bearer appeared, and his squire, and he mounted. The smoke troubled his war horse—he got a dozen lances behind him.

  “Follow me,” he said.

  They only had to ride a hundred paces for
him to see they were far too late. The Queen was gone—her guard massacred.

  Du Corse’s men-at-arms—Etruscans and Galles and a few Iberians—crossed themselves and muttered.

  At his elbow, l’Isle d’Adam was standing in his stirrups. “Where did the arrows come from? The arrows that killed the King?”

  A desire to protect the archbishop—the kingdom’s chancellor, after all—had kept Du Corse from acting. Now, though, he realized that no one had gone for the King’s killer.

  “North,” he said. “My impression is that the arrows came from the north.” He caught l’Isle d’Adam’s bridle. “No—time for that later. They have the Queen.”

  “Who has the Queen?” l’Isle d’Adam asked.

  Du Corse wrinkled his nose. “This Red Knight, I assume.”

  L’Isle d’Adam tugged his beard. “And where is de Vrailly?”

  Du Corse shook his helmeted head. “I haven’t seen him since the marshal dismissed him,” he said.

  Jean de Vrailly knelt in his pavilion, before his triptych of the Virgin flanked by Saint George and Saint Eustachios.

  “You lied,” he shouted. “You are no angel of God!”

  And then he hung his head and wept.

  Blanche wasn’t lost, but the collapse of the stands took her by surprise, and she was so close that a splinter went into her thigh—she shrieked, and then she was down—in a long moment of clarity she realized that it was not as bad as it felt; more the shock of the appearance of a dagger-like piece of wood in her leg than real pain. Carefully, she pulled the wicked splinter out.

  Blood soaked her grey kirtle instantly.

  The sight of the blood made her vision tunnel, and she tasted salt and bile.

  I will not throw up.

  Rough hands caught her under her shoulders.

  “All right now, mistress. You’ll be all right now,” said a male voice.

  She started to scream.

  Another pair of hands caught her legs. “Quiet, now, mistress,” said the other man. He was a priest, and seemed an unlikely assailant.

  She protested, and they ignored her, grunting as they carried her. They took her past the fire, around the eastern end of the wreckage where the smoke was clear.

  There was a woman—a very pretty woman—there in a stained yellow kirtle. She had flowers in her hair. There were a dozen men and women on the ground around her, and the two men carried Blanche closer and put her down gently on the packed dirt.

  The priest bowed. “Another for you, lady,” he said.

  The woman in yellow knelt by Blanche and said a prayer. She pulled Blanche’s kirtle and her shift up to her thigh, put a hand on the bleeding hole ripped by the splinter, and closed it.

  Blanche moaned, not in pain, but the expectation of pain. But there was none.

  The woman in yellow smiled at her.

  “You healed me!” Blanche said. Of course she’d heard of such things. The reality was—beautiful, somehow, despite the screams and the clawing of smoke at the back of her throat and the running feet.

  “Two children, lady—under a beam,” begged a smoke-blackened man.

  The lady rose, made the sign of the cross, and followed the man into the fire.

  The dust of the collapse of the stands was beginning to settle, but the smoke was now everywhere, and the mild breeze seemed to push all the smoke to their end of the lists but despite the smoke and his anguish, Gabriel made himself run. He had reserves, and he burned them, running for the place most likely to find his horse. And perhaps his brother.

  And against all odds, Gavin was there, and so was Ataelus.

  “You are a fucking idiot,” Gavin said, and then wasted twenty heartbeats crushing him in an embrace. “What would you have done if I’d ridden away? Grown wings and flown?”

  Gabriel felt like crying—he’d never been so glad to see Gavin in his life.

  “Tom’s long gone. Five minutes or more. We need to get clear before the archbishop gets his head together and has us taken. Their constable has gathered twenty men-at-arms and he’ll have more, no doubt.” Gavin was fussing with his mount’s girth.

  “Gavin, I have totally misplayed this.” Gabriel found himself staring at Nell, who was handing him his reins.

  “Tell me another time. In the name of God, get on the horse.” Gavin suited action to word and got his armoured leg across. “Have I mentioned what an idiot you are?”

  Nell grinned, and vaulted onto her own rouncy. “Toby rode with the knights,” she said.

  The box—barriers on three sides—protected them from view, at least for a moment.

  “Come on!” shouted Gavin.

  “Amicia’s—”

  Gavin put the spurs to his horse and rode out of the box, headed east into the smoke.

  Gabriel turned to his page. “I’m going for Sister Amicia,” he said.

  She nodded—and drew her sword.

  Gabriel smiled. “God bless you,” he said. He didn’t even think about it.

  Nell followed him as he turned south, towards the stands. The archbishop was in the middle of a knot of armoured men, and being moved—quickly—to the north, out of the smoke. Thousands of men and women and children were running, but the space of the lists themselves, because of the barriers, was mostly clear, and Gabriel rode along the lists, over his fallen enemy’s forgotten corpse, and towards where he could feel the pulse of Amicia’s working.

  There was shouting behind them. Armoured men on horseback had noticed them.

  Nell pointed. “Black and yellow coat armour,” she shouted.

  Gabriel wished he was not in harness, or on a war horse. But Ataelus was the best big horse he’d ever known, and he put on a pretty burst of speed—a tremendous spurt for a heavy horse—and they rode around the end of the wreckage of the stands. There was a crowd—a thick crowd, perhaps a thousand people. Bodies lay on blankets, and there were men—and women and children—in blood-soaked bandages, a long line leading to a small circle—

  “She went into the fire!” said an old woman. “She’s a living saint, sent by God himself!”

  A hundred people were on their knees. Others collected the injured—and the dead.

  They were not just the dead of the collapse of the wooden stands, either. Here was a young boy with a heavy war arrow that had ripped his soft flesh, and there, a toddler trampled to death by panicked people. Her mother had her in her arms and raised her to Gabriel.

  “I stepped on her—oh, Jesus save me, I stepped on her, and she’s dead.” She had the misery in her voice of the inconsolable.

  A man shouted, “Soldiers coming!”

  A woman screamed.

  “Hold the horses,” Gabriel snapped and dismounted, cursing the deep pinprick in his left underarm and all the pain in his hand—and head.

  He went into his palace and determined that he had little more than his reserves of ops and that his wounds were nothing—and that Amicia was indeed deep in the burning wreckage.

  He set his feet and cast—a wind

  water—

  and a cloud of bees.

  He wove gold and green into a net, and cast all three at once.

  Then he followed Amicia into the smoke.

  The two children were the two Amicia had slipped past when first she climbed the stands—days ago, it seemed. The beam was the structure’s main supporting beam, and it pinned them across their broken legs—massive fractures.

  The fire was an inferno, hell come to earth.

  As a little girl, Amicia’s village had a bonfire for All Hallows. She could remember it—the making of it, the anticipation, and her horror as she saw its power, not just in the real, but the aethereal. Fire. Fast, and ruthless and without intelligence.

  The fire had all the fuel of the royal box—hangings, painted with oils, and tapestries and wood partitions, furniture and beams and bleachers. It had an aethereal component, too. Someone—something had pushed the fire.

  The two children were heartbeats fr
om death with the smoke and fire—and the girl could not stop screaming. Her brother had already fainted.

  Amicia lacked the potentia, after healing, and a foolish struggle with death, to both lift the beam and hold the fire. But her trust in God was so absolute that she drained herself, holding the fire at bay, while four brave normal men—a father, and three of his servants—heaved with futile intensity at the beam. The father was weeping openly at his own impotence.

  “Why?” he screamed.

  Amicia pushed on the flames.

  Something on the other side pushed back, and laughed.

  “Got you,” Gabriel said at her shoulder. He put his hands on the beam and it moved.

  A sudden gust of wind, like the back of a storm god’s hand, slapped the fire away from Amicia.

  She was knocked to her knees—instantly soaked to the skin, and steam rose, scalding, and stopped on her shield.

  The bigger servant pulled the girl clear.

  Gabriel grunted.

  The father, his fine clothes ruined by smoke, got his son by the shoulders and pulled, and the boy screamed, denied the mercy of oblivion as his broken legs were wrenched from under the heavy wood.

  They retreated the length of a house, and Amicia knelt. “Give me—” she demanded.

  Gabriel put a hand on her shoulder.

  “I’m out,” he said. “Now get on my horse.”

  “You saved us all,” the man said. “I’m—oh, my God—”

  “Get on my horse—Nell!” he shouted.

  The crowd had thinned—men-at-arms could be seen on the other side of the smoke.

  Nell came through the crowd. She had no choice, and men cursed and women screamed at the two horses.

  “I can save them,” Amicia said.

  “Get on my horse,” Gabriel said. “Don’t be a fool. There’s no more you can do today. Other people can bandage them, and we’re about to be taken. Taken! Amicia!”

  He got up on Ataelus, and extended his hand—his good right hand.

  Behind him, his bees set upon the soldiers and the crowd somewhat indiscriminately.

  “You’re the Green Knight?” asked a pretty blonde woman. She was so pretty, that with his life at stake and Amicia hesitating, he still saw her.