When Gabriella opened her eyes again, she was terrified to see the ground far below, dotted with tiny trees, their shadows stretched out behind them in the dawn light. The hills had become crescents of lavender shadow, dropping gradually behind as the dragon hurtled onwards, still picking up speed. The wind whipped around Gabriella's face and made her eyes water. Slowly, however, her terror began to fade, and a cautious, heady exhilaration began to take its place.
She raised her gaze from the unrolling ground far below and peered ahead, daring to shade her eyes with one hand. The mountains were still far off, but they already seemed closer. There was a screech in the near distance. She turned towards it and saw Featherbolt swooping along next to her, tracking the dragon easily, his wing feathers fluttering in the rush of the wind. For the first time in days, Gabriella felt the subtle resurgence of determination. She was going to make it in time, perhaps even by the end of the day. She would find Merodach's hidden citadel in the Theatre of the Broken Crown. There, finally, she would confront him.
Then whatever was destined to happen would happen. Her thoughts and plans ended there. It was as if the enormity of what she had to do when that time came was simply too big, too monumental, for her mind to grasp.
Despite her determination, she had to admit to herself that she was afraid to confront the madman. She was, in fact, more afraid than she had ever been in her entire life—more than when she had faced the murderous Goethe over the corpse of her best friend, more even than when she had encountered the rampaging dragon in its own den. Her fear was like a poison elixir, rich and potent, but one that she forced herself to drink fully, one drop at a time. There was no turning back now. Her duty was unavoidable. With the help of Featherbolt and the dragon, she would go to her destiny willingly, her eyes wide open.
And when the finale came—whatever it held for her—she would welcome it.
She would embrace it.
Chapter 10
The broken peak of Mount Skelter became increasingly prominent as the day wore on. The dragon interrupted its flight three times, twice to eat and drink and once to empty its prodigious bowels. This last, it did with surprising delicacy, instinctively hiding itself away in the shadows of a rocky cleft. Gabriella stretched her limbs near the bend of a stream whilst Featherbolt preened on a nearby rock, his glossy feathers glinting in the waning sunlight.
The air had warmed throughout the day, melting the ground snow into a thin, icy crust and sending up great rafts of fog. More often than not, the dragon flew through these purposely, banking its great wings and using the serpentine curl of its tail as a rudder. Each time, Gabriella clung to the dragon's neck plate and squinted her eyes as the shock of grey dampness pulsed over them. The fog banks grew thicker and broader as the day descended into evening so that eventually, they seemed to be flying over a rippling cloudscape, tinged with the light of the low sun. For long stretches, Mount Skelter was the only visible landscape, pushing its craggy slopes and crumbled peak up out of the fog like an island.
Amazingly, the act of riding the dragon became monotonous. The wax and weft of its mighty wings became like the rhythm of a metronome, like the ticking pendulum used by her old harpsichord instructor, a tiny, ancient lord with heavy spectacles and knuckly hands. Gabriella had never been inclined to music despite her teacher's persistent efforts, but he had always been kind to her anyway, patting her dotingly on the shoulder and promising that, with practice, she would be a fine player someday.
"Don't give up, young Princess," he would say, holding back the pendulum with the first two fingers of his right hand and eyeing her gravely. "If your hands stumble on the keys, do not give up. The metronome will not stop, nor should you, lest it conquer you. Are you going to let such a thing best you, Princess? Keep playing even if you stumble a dozen times. The point is not perfection, but perseverance. Make the tempo your slave. Only then will the music come."
The music had not come, unfortunately, but there was a deeper truth in the music teacher's words. Gabriella had not known it at the time, but she had acted upon it in the years since. The point is not perfection, she thought to herself, but perseverance. Don't give up, Princess. Make the tempo your slave…
The thought of her old harpsichord teacher made her think of Darrick as a young man. He'd never had the luxury of private teachers, never experienced the comforts that were so commonplace to royalty like her. And yet in him had resided a nobility much deeper and truer than could be found in most of the lords she had ever known.
"Every boy I knew wanted to be brave Sir Lancelot," he had once confided in her, "I was one of them."
It seemed like years and decades ago. Even now, she could barely remember the feeling of his touch. He had treated her like a flower, like a delicate treasure, to be protected and cherished, loved in the intimate dark of a lifetime's nights. That had not happened, of course. Now the hands that he had caressed were chapped and rough. The hair he had nuzzled in the quiet embrace of their few nights was now a tangled mat, tamed by a length of dirty leather. Darrick's delicate flower had cast off her beauty and grown thorns.
"I'm sorry, my love," she said aloud, speaking into the rushing wind and fog. "I'm sorry for everything that was taken away from you. Your life… and the thing that you cared for even more. Me. I probably never really was the girl you believed me to be. But now I fear that you would not even recognise who I have become. I'm sorry." She swallowed hard and frowned, her eyes glistening. "I'm sorry… that you lost me."
The dragon soared on beneath her. Night began to creep over the cloudy sky, turning the light a haunting pearly lavender. The peak of Mount Skelter loomed before them now, huge and sprawling. Beneath it, glimpsed occasionally through the sweeping fog, were the rock-edged foothills. Gabriella sensed that they were very close to their destination. Soon, the dragon would descend and land. From there, she would travel the rest of the way on foot, meaning to enter the enemies' camp secretly, stealthily. At that point, instinct would take over.
The dragon flew over a patchy bank of fog so low that tendrils of it curled up around them, reaching for them like thin fingers. Gabriella watched this as if mesmerised.
Something lofted up out of the fog. It moved with almost balletic grace, turning as it arced over the humps of the clouds. Gabriella was too surprised by it to be afraid. It looked, more than anything, like a large canvas bag stuffed with something dense, its mouth tied in a neat knot. The shape traced a gentle parabola through the air on the dragon's right and then fell back, disappearing again into the fog.
"What was—" she began, but was interrupted by a violent explosion directly beneath her.
The dragon recoiled in mid-air, nearly throwing her from its back. Something had stricken it and erupted into a cloud of thick, yellow powder. Gabriella choked on the dust as it swirled up around her, blinding her. A moment later, the dragon fell out of the yellow cloud, struggling to fly but clawing wildly at the air and writhing its long neck. Gabriella clung to her mount, but the dragon's frantic movements made it very difficult. The wings struggled to grasp the air. Wind rushed up past them, and Gabriella realised with a sick jolt of fear that they were falling.
Another of the strange sacks arced up towards them, spinning lazily and trailing yellow dust. It struck the dragon on the flank and exploded, coating the beast with more of the ugly powder. The dragon lunged away in mid-air, its tail thrashing. An instant later, the fog swept up over them, hiding everything in its seamless depths. Gabriella clung frantically to the dragon, not even knowing which way was up. The beast dropped through the ceiling of the fog, and the earth opened up beneath them, looking huge and close and unforgivably hard.
There were men down there, at least a dozen of them, all looking up, shouting and pointing. They were near enough that Gabriella could see their individual faces.
The dragon writhed violently in mid-air, clapped its wings in a last, desperate attempt to capture the wind, and succeeded. Its fall was arrested, transforming it
into a hurtling swoop, but it was too late to pull up. The stone-crested foothills rushed up beneath them, reaching for them, and Gabriella squeezed her eyes shut.
There was a whistling silence followed inexorably by a hard, deafening whump. The dragon convulsed dreadfully beneath Gabriella, and she felt herself thrown free. The wings whipped past her, smacked at her armour. A moment later, she struck the ground herself. She was rolling, skipping over the earth like a discus, her hair flying wildly and her armour clanging against the rocks. Finally, she tumbled to a halt, eyes still closed, dazed and face down on the earth.
"This way," a rough voice called gleefully. "It's down! It's down! Bring the nets!"
The rabble grew closer, calling and shouting commands, laughing raucously. Gabriella moaned and tried to push herself upright. A bolt of blinding pain seared up her left arm accompanied by a horrid, grinding sensation. She fell back, crying out involuntarily.
The ground shuddered beneath her. The dragon was getting up. She heard it. It thrashed and growled thickly, but there was something wrong with it. It wheezed, and when it tried to roar, to bury its adversaries in gouts of blue flame, its throat produced only a choked hiss.
"Flame us through that, you great blowhard!" a voice laughed. "Bring another bag of the Damproot powder! Let's have one more dose for good measure!"
"Should we wheel the catapult over and fire it straight into the big lizard's kisser?" another voice suggested, and there was a round of hearty laughter and encouragement.
"It's rearing!" another shouted. "More nets! This is a big'n!"
There was a creak of straining rope and a shuddering thrash. The dragon was fighting. Gabriella struggled up again, using her right arm, and stumbled towards the sound.
"Mind the jaws!" a deep voice bellowed happily. "He may not be able to roast us, but those teeth might still subtract a leg. Stand fast!"
"Stop!" Gabriella cried, but her voice failed her. Her chest ached from her fall, and the pain in her left arm spiked with every step. "Leave him alone, you monsters!" She descended the hill and spotted shapes moving in the fog.
"Wait," a voice called gruffly. "What was that?"
"Someone approaches!"
Swords rang from scabbards as Gabriella stumbled into the shallow valley. "Leave him be!" she shouted angrily.
Before her, the dragon lay imprisoned in a tangle of thick nets, each one edged with heavy iron balls, knotting the mass into an ugly prison. The beast struggled and thrashed, trying desperately to flame but producing only dry, choked gusts. Dozens of men clustered around the dragon, some poking it savagely with pikes, all wearing mismatched collections of armour and ragged beards. Others gathered by a small, wheeled catapult. A wagon loaded with more of the canvas powder bags stood nearby.
"You beasts!" Gabriella raged, forgetting the pain in her arm and dashing forwards.
"Whoever she is," one of the men growled, pointing a thick finger at Gabriella, "take her."
They fell upon her. Acting purely on instinct, Gabriella unsheathed her sword. She swung one-handed and felt the ringing clang of blade on metal. A battle-axe caught her sword in its fork, and the man holding the axe gave it a hard twist. The blade snapped off, leaving only the hilt in her fist. She turned on the man, baring her teeth in blind anger and raising the hilt like a bludgeon. He caught her wrist easily, laughing and showing a mouthful of rotten teeth.
"Look what we have here, men," the man bellowed, twisting Gabriella's wrist and forcing her to drop her broken sword. "First a dragon, and now a she-warrior, armour and all!"
Gabriella struggled, broke away from the man, and swung at him wildly. He caught her left forearm this time, and a jolt of crippling pain rammed up her arm. A second later, the man's other fist struck her on the temple, driving her to her knees and making the world go swimmy before her eyes. Blood immediately began to run down her cheek, hot in the winter air. He still did not release her arm. The broken bone grated excruciatingly, and she cried out with the pain of it.
"She's a feisty one," a nearby voice laughed wickedly. "Can you handle her, Radnic?"
"Where did she come from?" another figure demanded, stepping forwards to peer at her. "Are there others? A girl so young surely would not brave the wilderness alone."
A much taller and darker man pushed past him. He approached Gabriella, his eyes narrowed above a tangled, black beard. When he knelt on one knee before her, she recoiled from him, not out of fear, but revulsion. Even through the red mist of her pain, the man reeked of death. His eyes were as empty as marbles.
"No," he said slowly, "she is the only one."
Gabriella's captor squeezed her forearm again, twisting it upright over her head. "You know her?"
The leader shook his head thoughtfully. "No. But I smell vengeance upon her. She has come alone, of her own volition." And then, with a hint of amusement, he added, "She intends… to fight."
"What do we do with her, Brom?" the man behind him asked warily. "Do we kill her?"
The leader, Brom, smiled evilly. "Not yet," he growled. "That would be a terrible waste. Bring her. She shall be my… guest."
A chorus of hoots and catcalls followed this, building to a raucous crescendo.
Gabriella gritted her teeth and pushed herself upright, fighting a wave of faintness. Her captor still held her broken forearm in a vise-like grip.
"Release me!" she commanded hoarsely. "I am the Princess of Camelot. My father is the King. Obey my command!"
The chorus of laughter died away. Before her, Brom rose up again to his full height. He was more than a foot taller than she and twice as wide. His eyes did not leave hers, nor did his smile falter as he stepped directly in front of her. The stench of death was thick around him. He raised a callused hand and traced his fingers down the angle of her cheek, drawing a dirty line in her own fresh blood. She flinched away but could not escape his presence. The pain in her arm was breathtaking.
Brom drew his hand back from her face, showed her the blood that coated his fingers. Slowly, deliberately, he licked her blood from his fingers. He closed his eyes slightly and moaned with pleasure.
"Out here, Your Highness," he said, breathing down into her face like a lover, "there is a much different command. I think you shall learn it well… in the short time you have left."
They hauled her behind the catapult, which was itself pulled by a pair of chortha. A length of rope bound her wrists before her, attaching her to the rear of the war machine and yanking her mercilessly forwards. The pain in her forearm had become a deep ache, throbbing so hard that she felt it in the veins of her neck, saw it in the corners of her eyes.
The dragon was dragged along as well. Still imprisoned in nets, thrashing uselessly, it was pulled bodily over the rocky snow by a team of chortha. They snarled and gnashed at their harnesses, struggling with the massive weight. The awful men whipped the beasts with studded chains, ripping hanks of fur out with each strike.
Fortunately, the troop was not far from their camp. They clambered up a jagged rise and over its ledge, and Gabriella saw the small valley below them. It was almost perfectly round, ringed with sharp outcroppings of rock and nestled firmly at the base of Mount Skelter. The Theatre of the Broken Crown was filled with ranks of rough soldiers, makeshift tents, and smoking campfires. On its furthest edge, a small citadel stood. It looked like an overgrown chess rook, made of grey stone and marked only with arrow slits.
The catapult picked up speed as it rocked down the inside slope of the valley. It jerked Gabriella forwards, making her stumble and eliciting a cry of agony for her broken forearm. As the caravan entered the camp, soldiers stopped what they were doing to watch. Gabriella avoided their gaze, but felt their eyes crawling over her unabashedly. The grounds of the enemy camp were mashed to mud and streaked with puddles. Smoke rolled between the tents, pressed to the ground by the strange atmosphere of the natural depression. Large, bloody racks of meat turned slowly on iron spits over greasy fires. Gabriella shuddered as she loo
ked at them.
She had intended, once she caught her breath, to demand to know what the horrible soldiers meant to do with the dragon. Now she suspected the ugly truth. They meant to eat it.
Finally, nearing the centre of the camp, the catapult jerked to a stop. Brom approached, his feet squelching on the mucky ground. He unsheathed his sword with a flourish. Gabriella tried not to flinch as he swung it over her. There was a hard thunk of metal on wood as his blade cut Gabriella's rope free of the catapult. He caught the end of it, turned, and gave it a yank, pulling her forwards.
"Stop!" she gasped, slipping on the mud, but it was no use. He led her down a swampy aisle between two canvas tents. She tripped over one of the tent's long, wooden stakes and stumbled to the mud, but Brom did not break his stride. He yanked her forwards almost effortlessly, and Gabriella screamed for her tortured arm.
She was heaved into a larger tent. As soon as the shadow of it fell over her, the smell of death, fetid throughout the entire camp, became a noxious reek. Gabriella sucked in a lungful of it involuntarily and wretched.
Brom dropped the rope, and Gabriella collapsed to the floor of the tent, gasping.
For a long minute, there was silence, punctuated only by the ragged tide of Gabriella's breathing as she recovered herself. Finally, she pushed herself up onto her knees.
The tent was large but very dark. Complicated shapes loomed—a chair, a table, a rope hung with thick, wet hanks of animal skins and furs, other things that, for the moment, Gabriella could not comprehend.
And Brom. He stood near the entrance, barely a silhouette in the darkness, his arms dangling loosely at his sides, his tangle of beard bristling. He was staring at her motionlessly.
Gabriella mustered her resolve and took a deep breath. "Let me go!" she rasped furiously.
Brom did not reply, nor did he move.
Gabriella pulled at the ropes twined about her wrists but immediately collapsed in anguish at her poor broken arm. Tears of anger and frustration welled in her eyes. She pushed herself onto her knees again and glared up at the dark figure.
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