by Paul Stewart
With her free hand trailing along the wall, Zar noted that its surface was scratched with tiny marks, grooves much smaller than those made by the curved claws of a great whitewyrme. She was puzzled for a moment, but then it occurred to her that these clawmarks, crisscrossed and experimental, were the marks of infant wyrmes.
They continued through the darkness in silence. The wyrmesounds grew more distinct.
Asa stopped abruptly and Zar bumped against him. There was a faint glow illuminating the tunnel ahead. The pair of them edged forward and peered round the curving tunnel wall. Beyond was a vast shadowy chamber, illuminated with pale flickering light.
They had found a secret place, far below the open airy galleries above – a place in which to nurture the most precious thing the wyrme colony had possessed. Its young.
For this, Zar realized, was a nursery.
Scarcely daring to breathe, she inched closer. The light was coming from a pool of oil set in a shallow dip in the floor, its surface dancing with purple and yellow flames. It flickered on the walls and high domed ceiling, and on the pearlsheen scales of a whitewyrme sitting on its haunches at the centre of the cave. Zar saw the black zigzag scar that ran down the side of its white neck.
Aseel. It was Aseel. No other whitewyrme had such a distinctive marking.
But what was he doing here?
She looked round at Asa. The light spilling out from the cave tipped the edge of his snout, the tops of his crest; it filled his eyes. He responded to her inquisitive look with the briefest shake of his head. They should not disturb him.
Just beyond Aseel, half-shielded by the curve of his back and folded wings, was another whitewyrme. A female.
She was curled up in a spiral, her tail tucked under her shoulders and her head resting upon the curve of her back. She was looking up at Aseel, thin strings of smoke trickling from her nostrils.
Aseel said something, but his voice was too low for Zar to hear what. He inclined his sinuous neck and the female raised hers. They intertwined gently, until they were muzzle to muzzle and looking into one another’s yellow eyes. They whispered to each other in soft lilting words of wyrmetongue, still too quiet for Zar to make out – though their meaning was unmistakeable.
Zar’s stomach churned. Aseel had a mate . . .
The female unwound her neck from Aseel’s, and Zar caught sight of a small bundle nestling at the centre of her coiled body.
It was a child. An infant boy.
He was sleeping, swaddled in wyrmeslough, his little head peeking out of the swathes of white as the two wyrmes lowered their heads, chirring lightly, and breathed warm sweet smoke over him.
Something stirred inside Zar. Aseel’s mate had kinned . . .
She had found herself a defenceless human child and been drawn to enfold him in her coils, bond with him, nurture and protect him. She would clothe him in the skin from her own body and share with him the gift of flight. And one day the time would come when he would give her gifts in return – human cunning and savagery, and the ability to fight and destroy in order to protect not only her, but all wyrmekind, from the predations of kith.
To be kinned. It was wonderful and terrible at the same time. Beside her, Zar felt a tremble ripple through Asa’s body. He felt the same way as she did.
This was too intimate a scene on which to intrude. Quietly they withdrew and retraced their footsteps – along the underground stores, up the zigzag passageways and through the chambers above, until they emerged in the topmost gallery to find the place crowded.
The whitewyrmes and their kin had all gathered on the ledges. Their wings were flexed and their kinlances quivered as they looked out across the weald. Zar turned to a kingirl standing close by, her arm wrapped around her wyrme’s neck.
‘What’s happening?’ she asked.
The kingirl from the jagged ridges turned and shook her head, her eyes flashing white from behind the black mask of sootgrease. Her whitewyrme’s barbels quivered as he sniffed at the air
‘The taint,’ the kingirl said. ‘There’s kith close by.’
Eleven
‘We must get away from here,’ Eli announced.
He closed his spyglass and pushed it back inside the pocket of his hacketon jacket.
‘Are . . . are we in danger?’ Micah asked, staring ahead at the great sandstone cliffs that rose up from the plains in the far distance.
‘We are,’ Eli replied curtly and turned away, motioning for the others to follow.
The cold misty start to the day became hot and oppressive as the sun rose in the sky. All around them the grasslands seemed to stretch on for ever, with the bluegreen grass swaying languidly as they waded through it. Above their heads, the air thrummed with clouds of midges.
Sometime after midday, banks of high turbulent black cloud rolled in from the west, and the first rain started to fall in the late afternoon. The wind strengthened, the temperature dropped.
Eli neither eased up nor suggested they take shelter. He allowed no rests at all. They gulped water from their gourds and canteens as they walked and, since none of them had anything to eat in their packs, they went hungry.
They kept on in silence. As dusk set in, Eli glanced back at the horizon behind them, then addressed the others.
‘We keep on,’ he said, his voice edged with defiance, though no one had suggested they should not.
The light faded and the rain eased some, but the wind did not abate. It drove the raindrops needlesharp-cold into their faces, and all five of them were forced to stoop into it, their heads lowered and the brims of their hats tugged down. Night fell, and still they kept on – blindly, one in front of the other, guided by their ears rather than their eyes.
‘Damn it to hell!’ Cody exclaimed as Ethan kicked his heel, and the both of them went stumbling forward into the darkness. ‘That’s the third time.’
He bumped into Micah, who was walking just ahead of him, his raised hands shoving his shoulder blades. And Micah blundered into Cara, cussing under his breath. Cara let out a small uncertain gasp, then righted herself. She reached back for Micah, who found her hand and squeezed it reassuringly.
‘I’m sorry, Cody,’ Ethan protested. ‘It’s so dark and slippy ’n all. And I’m tired . . .’
‘Stop your whining,’ Cody told him sharply.
‘Hush up, all of you,’ Eli’s voice hissed from out of the darkness ahead, his voice clipped with irritation.
‘Just hold back a step,’ Cody growled at his brother.
‘All right, all right,’ Ethan whispered back.
The cragclimber kept on. Footsore and boneweary, the others followed. The wind howled like something feral. Midnight came and went, and still Eli kept marching, the others following the steady thud of his footfall and the tap-tap-tap of his walking staff in a trance of exhaustion.
Finally Eli did call out for a halt. Micah and Cara stopped in their tracks, and Cody came up behind them, his breath low and rasping.
‘Happen we’ve put as much distance between us and them galleries as we can for now,’ Eli told them, and though Micah could not see the expression on the cragclimber’s face, he could hear tension in his voice. ‘Keep your packs close to hand,’ he told them. ‘And be ready to move at a moment’s notice.’
Micah crouched down in the darkness and slipped his backpack from his shoulders.
‘What did you see back there, Eli?’ he asked. ‘Through the spyglass . . .’
There was a flash, followed by a dull yellow glow that emanated from inside the folds of Eli’s leather hacketon as the cragclimber lit the stub of a tallow candle and shielded it from the rain. The pale light illuminated his face, and those of Micah and Cara, and Cody, who was looking around wildly; but not Ethan’s face.
For Ethan was not there.
Twelve
‘Cody?’
&n
bsp; Nothing. Again. Ethan’s heart hammered inside his chest.
‘Cody?’
Ethan’s voice was no more than an urgent whisper. He wanted to shout out for his brother, but dared not, for fear of invoking Eli’s ire and his brother’s scorn. He’d been rebuked enough for one day. ‘Cody . . .’
Still nothing.
Ethan stopped in his tracks. Listened. He’d been guided through the darkness by the sound of his brother’s footfalls and rasping breath just up ahead of him. But they were gone now. There was nothing but rainhiss and windhowl. And he was alone.
He wiped the back of his hand across his face, trying to suppress the panic that churned in his stomach, and set off again. A brisk loping walk soon stumbled into a lurching trot. The wet grass was waist-high. It slashed at his legs, bladesharp and needle-tipped. Stones crunched beneath the soles of his heavy boots.
‘Cody, Cody, Cody,’ he murmured under his breath in time to their clomping.
But Cody did not reply. And Ethan couldn’t see him – he couldn’t see anything. He stopped a second time, his head spinning, scalp itching. He wanted to cry.
What if he was heading off in the wrong direction? What if every step he took was increasing the gap between him and the others?
What should he do?
Then he felt it. A blast of air, warm and sulphurous against his cheek. His skin crawled, clammy and chill. His heart thudded harder inside his chest.
It was a gust of wind, was all, he reasoned, just stronger than the rest. It had slammed into his face for a moment, blowing back the brim of his hat, tugging at his jacket, and then was gone. A gust of wind . . .
Suddenly, and without any warning, it was back again. Warm, odorous, buffeting wind. It swirled around him in a powerful updraught. Ethan raised his hands above his head automatically, protectively.
There was a screech. Then another. He heard wingbeats.
Then, abruptly, there was a flurry of noise and movement. Clawscratch. Wingbeat.
Stoneshift.
Something had landed directly in front of him. He peered unseeing into the blackness. There was something behind him too, and at his sides, left and right.
He could hear them.
Creaking, like old leather. Rustle and scrape. And curious harsh sounds, like driving hail and rumbling thunder – but close by and quite separate from the hiss of the windswept rain.
And then, all at once, he could see them too. Five enormous wyrmes standing around him. Their white-scale bodies were stained red from the glow that emanated from their gaping jaws, fire burning deep in their throats. It was like staring into embered furnaces.
The wyrmes inclined their necks towards him, their wings raised and the scalloped edges disappearing into the darkness. Their eyes pulsed dark amber, and from their gaping jaws came the curious noises of hail and thunder.
The creatures were talking.
From the darkness beyond their upraised wings, there came sharp cries, like dogsnarl and spindrift. The wyrme in front of Ethan folded its wings, and there, sitting at the base of its neck, was a hooded figure.
Ethan stared, wide-eyed, as the figure reached up and lowered the hood. It was a youth. Pale-skinned, younger than him, he judged, with sharp eyes and wisps of red hair plastered to his forehead. His angular body was encased in a tight-fitting suit of white scaly skin, identical to that of the whitewyrme he was seated upon. Gripped in his hand was a long black lance, which he lowered and levelled at Ethan’s neck. His eyes narrowed and he hissed venomously, his teeth bared.
From all sides, Ethan heard the harsh hissing sound being echoed. His stomach knotted as he glanced around. Each of the whitewyrmes, he now saw, had a rider upon its back. They were all dressed the same, in clinging suits of wyrmeskin, the hoods raised; they each gripped a long, ferocious-looking lance, which they were pointing at him.
Ethan turned back to the first rider and attempted to smile. But his jaws felt stiff, and his lips tight.
‘I . . . I don’t mean no harm,’ he said. ‘My name’s Ethan.’
The rider cocked his head to one side and smiled back at Ethan. But it was a cold violent smile, devoid of empathy or friendship or warmth. His lips parted and he let out a keening snarl. The wyrme he was seated on raised its neck and replied in a soft whispering rattle. Ethan swallowed hard, too terrified to imagine what they might be saying.
‘He is timorous, this one,’ Azura observed, the barbels at her jaws trembling.
‘He is kith,’ Kesh snarled.
‘Travelling alone? They never travel alone.’ Timon’s small dark eyes darted round from one kin to the other.
‘Some do,’ his wyrme, Aakhen, corrected him, and Avaar, Amir and Aluris nodded their agreement. ‘If you had lived as long as us, you would know that kith come in all sorts . . .’
‘Filth is filth, however they choose to travel,’ said Kesh, his voice as harsh as tumbling scree.
‘So what shall we do with him?’ Ramilles said, prodding the kithyouth in the back with his lance.
Kesh looked across at the older kin. ‘Slowdeath,’ he said, and bared his teeth. The word crackled like lightning. ‘We should make an example of him, like we did with those hunters up on the northern rises.’ His mouth twisted into a vicious grin. ‘We should kill him slowly and with great care. And then display him as a warning to others.’
‘It took them a long time to die,’ said Finn, his hooded eyes blinking as he remembered the scene.
‘I shall not soon forget it,’ Avaar said. Her barbels quivered as she shook her head, and when she spoke again, her voice was soft and fragile. ‘To conceive of killing a creature in such a manner . . .’
She left the words hanging. The other whitewyrmes dipped their heads.
‘That’s why you have us,’ Kesh said, his mouth twisted into a malevolent smile.
Azura turned her head towards him, her eyes flecked with red. ‘And you take such delight in it,’ she breathed.
‘Perhaps we should dismember this one,’ said Timon.
‘Or roast him,’ said Baal. He ignored the uneasy quivering of his wyrme, Amir, beneath him.
‘Certainly we should take his claws and his fangs,’ said Finn. ‘As they do to wyrmekind . . .’
Kesh shook his head and fixed Ramilles with a stare. ‘I have a better idea,’ he said.
Ethan listened dread-soaked as the strange talk whirled round about him.
All at once, the youth with the red hair lunged forward with his lance, pushing it between Ethan’s ankles and twisting, knocking him off balance and sending him sprawling to the ground. With yelps, the other kin jumped from their wyrmes, and planting their lances in the ground, fell on him.
Ethan tried to get up, but one of the kin grabbed his legs while the youth with the thin lips and small darting eyes shoved him hard in the chest, pushing his shoulders back against the ground.
Behind them, one of the wyrmes turned its head and sent out a jet of flame. It scorched the grass to blackened straw, which a second wyrme scythed away with a single sweep of a great curved talon. Ethan felt himself being dragged across onto the bare patch of grassland, which was prickly and still smoking. His arms were pulled straight above his head, his legs were splayed. Bindings were tied round his wrists, his ankles, and secured to spikes that the kin were hammering into the ground with lumps of rock.
Ethan squirmed and writhed, but the bindings held fast. He could not move. The rain splashed into his face, masking the tears that streamed down his cheeks.
The youth stooped down over him. His eyes glittered cold, malignant.
‘Wh . . . what are you going to do with me?’ Ethan moaned.
The youth’s tongue flicked across his lower lip. ‘I . . . open you up . . .’ he said. The rasped words were faltering and sounded unnatural in his mouth. He pulled his kinlance from the
ground and trailed its point from the base of Ethan’s neck to the pit of his belly. ‘From here . . . to here . . .’
Behind him, the wyrmes trembled. One of them let out a long bleak sigh, smoke coiling up from her flared nostrils. The youth smiled as Ethan began to sob.
‘. . . slowly.’
‘It is too much,’ Avaar protested, and the other ancient whitewyrme females nodded their heads in agreement.
Kesh’s mouth twisted into a petulant pout as he turned to his wyrme, Azura.
‘You understand, don’t you?’ he said, staring into her glowing eyes. ‘The kith must fear us if we’re to turn them back.’
Azura looked at the other whitewyrmes, then inclined her head. ‘Let our kin do what they must,’ she breathed.
Kesh smiled triumphantly, his sharp crooked teeth glinting in the red light. ‘Slowdeath!’ he hissed.
Timon and Baal smiled. Finn nodded. But their whitewyrmes, Aakhen, Amir and Avaar, stepped back and turned away.
‘He glories in the killing, this kin of yours,’ Ramilles’ wyrme, Aluris, sighed to Azura.
Azura’s eyes flashed red, but she did not disagree.
Kesh raised his lance and pressed it against the skin at Ethan’s neck, only for Ramilles to step forward and knock the lance from the younger kin’s grasp.
‘No,’ he said. ‘Aluris is right. Let this be done quickly.’
Kesh turned on Ramilles, his eyes burning with hatred, and looked for a moment as if he’d strike him, but stopped when he saw the knife in the older kin’s hand. Kesh’s snarl turned to a bitter smile.
‘As you wish, Ramilles,’ he said.
Thirteen
‘Stop!’
The cragclimber’s voice rang out across the high grassy plains. His eyes hardened as he peered through the gloom.
There were five whitewyrmes and five riders. The wyrmes were ancient and female, their yellow-stained scales, crisscrossed with scars, suggested to Eli that they came from the sulphur peaks far to the north-east. Their kin were all young males, clad in soulskin and armed with black venom-tipped lances. The brawniest of them, a youth with dark curly hair, was hunkered down over the boy, Ethan, holding a knife to his neck while the others watched.