by Ben Galley
‘There,’ Tyrfing whispered, as they peeked out from their alcove.
Farden squinted. ‘Where?’
Tyrfing pointed to a diamond-shaped opening in the wall a few hundred yards up ahead. ‘That archway ahead leads up into the nests. In the great hall.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Not entirely, but we will soon find out,’ Tyrfing replied. Another roar echoed through the halls, punctuation for his words. ‘We’re definitely getting close.’
That they were, and that meant soldier after soldier strolling past their hiding place. They were nestled tightly behind a pillar and a broken door. Nobody spared it a glance, but the hall was long, and open, and the soldiers too frequent to provide them with a gap. They waited, and then waited some more, but the soldiers and patrols kept on coming. Farden was busy watching the left. He was squinting like an owl. He thought he had just seen a witch.
‘I think there’s only one thing for it,’ muttered his uncle, watching the right. ‘We can’t come this close and fail now.’
‘For what?’ asked Farden, but he’d already realised. He shook his head. ‘Oh no, not again,’ he moaned.
‘Just hold your breath when it starts and then breathe slowly and calmly once it’s finished. These spells sink better into a relaxed body. It’s like warm clay. More malleable.’
‘Thanks for the tip,’ Farden grimaced. He rolled his shoulders and clicked his knuckles, as if that would help at all. ‘Fine. Do your worst.’
‘Hold still,’ Tyrfing reached out to hold his nephew’s shoulder. Farden grit his teeth as Tyrfing’s hard fingers grabbed him. It felt as though a bag of hot coals had just been strapped to his shoulder. The pain came, just as before, stayed, and then receded to a level that was just about bearable. Farden looked down at his hands and noticed the scales there were different from before, a shade of dusty lilac. They were slender too, compared to his usual. Farden looked down to see what clothes his uncle had clad him in this time, but found his view blocked by something protruding from his chest, something inside his cotton shirt. Farden frowned, confused. As he raised his hands to query the obstructions, the realisation dropped like a stone.
‘You made me a woman?!’ he hissed, whirling around.
‘Keep your voice down!’ Tyrfing warned. He had taken his soldier’s form again, exactly as before.
Farden’s lilac scales were turning violet. ‘Do you really think this is a good time for jokes?’
‘Even the Lost Clans would be less suspicious of a woman, Farden. The quicker we get across, the quicker I can turn you back.’ Tyrfing looked his nephew up and down and cracked a little smile. ‘I have to say, you would have made a very ugly niece.’
‘You better hope I never get my magick back,’ Farden warned, struggling half-heartedly against his uncle’s grip. He was stuck fast. The more he moved, the more the spell hurt. ‘Turn me back now!’ he winced.
‘It’s done now. On your feet, madam,’ Tyrfing ordered. Farden had no choice. He winced as they got to their feet. Tyrfing took the sword and gently nudged him forward. ‘Ladies first,’ he smirked.
Farden brandished a finger. ‘I swear to the gods…’
‘Shut up and head down. Act miserable,’ Tyrfing whispered in his ear.
No problem there, thought Farden, as he shuffled across the corridor. Tyrfing played the part well, shoving and waving the sword about. Few of the soldiers they passed batted an eyelid. One paused to look Farden up and down, licking dry lips, before sauntering on. Just another prisoner, shambling through the halls.
It took them a long minute to reach the alcove and its stairs. The closer they came to it, the louder the noises became, a clamour of roaring and grunting, the bell-pealing of iron and hammers. As soon as they were safely tucked into the alcove’s shadow, Tyrfing released his nephew. Farden tottered around as his body twisted back into its normal state, armour and all. He patted his chest. ‘Thank f…’
‘Shh,’ Tyrfing held up a hand. A crooked shadow was coming down the stairs towards them. Tyrfing grabbed Farden again and thrust him forward. The mage yelped as the pain struck him a third time.
‘Morning,’ grunted the soldier, over the din, as the prisoner and her guard came into view.
‘Morning,’ replied the guard, in a gruff voice. The soldier held up his torch as they passed. He gave the female a lingering look as she went by, eyeing her ample chest. She shot daggers at him. With a shrug, and a dirty chuckle, he went on his way.
Farden grit his teeth as his uncle released him again. ‘Could I get a little warning, next time?’ he hissed.
‘Feeling sick?’
Farden closed his eyes. ‘Very.’
Tyrfing nodded. ‘It’s all in the mind. That spell doesn’t really twist the body so much as the brain. Instead of altering your bones and muscles, like true shapeshifting, it tricks the eye into seeing something completely different. Hence why your armour disappeared and your clothes changed.’
Farden rubbed his sweaty forehead. ‘This really isn’t the time for lectures, uncle.’
‘Sorry,’ he answered. ‘I…’ An ear-splitting roar cut his sentence in two. The two mages barely swapped a look before bounding up the stairs to the nearest nest.
Like most of the nests in the hall, it was unoccupied. Strewn with brittle, pale straw and pine needles, the going underfoot crackled as they crept towards the gnarled edge of the rock-hewn nest. They stuck to the shadows, keeping their faces out of the light. A hundred torches blazed below. They shuffled slowly to the edge and peered down into the great hall.
A difficult sight greeted them with open arms.
Below them, sprawled in a circle on the cold granite floor, were five dragons. They lay prone and uncomfortable, with their legs splayed at odd angles. While their tails thrashed and beat the stone, their heads remained perfectly still, lying within inches of each other. It took Farden and Tyrfing a few moments to realise why.
Iron collars. Great, heavy iron collars that were being bolted and molten into holes in the granite around the dragons’ necks. It was a miracle they were staying still. Farden suspected it had something to do with the fact five riders stood nearby, with five knives to their scaled throats. One stood above the rest, a woman with golden hair and scales. She held her chin high, but her eyes were firmly fixed on the only dragon who was not struggling to be free, the big red-gold male. Towerdawn. His tawny eyes were fixed on his rider, Aelya. Farden could only wonder what they were saying to each other in their private silence.
It was then that Saker himself swept into the hall, with his captains at his back. Even from a distance, Farden could see the smugness on his face. His many teeth flashed in the torchlight. He drank in the scene for a moment before gesturing to one of his soldiers. He beckoned for something, and then moved to stand by Towerdawn’s head. He flicked one of the dragon’s horns with his finger. Farden could see Towerdawn’s scales ripple with anger as he bared his row after row of fangs. Saker laughed. A cold sound, like the hammers on the iron.
As he knelt down to whisper into Towerdawn’s ears, a gang of soldiers and soot-blackened workers shuffled into the hall, weighed down by something heavy and cumbersome. It took them a few moments to manoeuvre it into view, and then it was shown to the mages and the hall in all its ugly glory.
It was a throne, but not like any throne Farden had ever seen. Not grandiose. Not ornate. Instead, it was made completely out of iron. Its makers had given it a cursory polish and file, but nothing more. It shone dully in the light. The strangest aspect of it was its legs. It had long, thick legs, far longer than they rightly should have been.
Saker seemed pleased enough with it. Thrilled, even. He patted the Old Dragon on the head and then leapt up spryly, jabbing his fingers at the floor. The soldiers and workers shuffled forward, arms shaking and veins popping.
Although it took them a while to manhandle it into position, it didn’t take long for the throne’s ghastly purpose to become apparent. There w
as a reason Saker was so content with such an odd throne, a throne with such long legs. Why? The mages saw it now. It had been forged to sit on top of Towerdawn’s huge collar. It was a pure, cast-iron insult. A slap in the Old Dragon’s scaly face. Humiliation, wrought and forged.
As a pair of wooden steps were carried in to flank it, Saker couldn’t have looked more eager to climb them. They were barely on the floor before he was striding up them, chest bared and furry coat-tails snapping behind him. With a flourish, the Lord of the North claimed his new throne atop the Old Dragon’s golden head.
Farden boiled with fury. His face was a shade so red that Tyrfing half-expected the straw beneath them to burst into flame. His fingers clutched desperately at the rock. Tyrfing didn’t blame him. He eyed the glittering knives at the riders’ throats. ‘Easy, nephew,’ he muttered.
Farden simply growled in reply.
Saker was looking around as if addressing a royal court, head held high and a tight smile to show a sliver of his needle-teeth. In actuality, his audience was a meagre one. Aside from the gaggle of workers, a score or so of his soldiers and captains, and the five dragons and their riders, there was scarcely a soul in the great hall. A few dragons lingered in the upper nests. Pale, sleepy things. Juvenile wyrms. A handful of riders stood by a fireplace, watching their lord with grins. Saker may have looked like a king, but his kingdom, for the moment, looked like the swollen population of some eccentric village.
Saker rapped his knuckles on the arm of his throne and looked at the dragons prostrate at his feet. Yellow, blue, black, green, and gold. They lay like a colour wheel. Every single one glared great daggers at him. Saker almost seemed to enjoy it. He tapped his foot on the Old Dragon’s collar. ‘If only Farfallen could see you now, kafflechs,’ Saker spat something foreign. ‘He would be mightily displeased.’
Chuckles from the bystanders. Farden wanted to gut them all.
Saker tapped his throne again. ‘Now the beauty of this arrangement is simple,’ he paused to cross his legs and shuffle into a more comfortable position, like some tavern storyteller, spinning yarns for his supper. ‘Your claws and limbs are bound. Your tails soon will be. Your wings are useless. You have yet one weapon left at your disposal.’
The blue dragon, Farden didn’t recognise her, hissed at this. Something bright and molten dribbled from the corner of her mouth. Saker pointed, delighted. ‘Exactly!’ he announced. ‘Fire.’ He got to his feet and slapped a hand against his chest. ‘Any one of you could burn me to a cinder this very moment, but you would kill your Old Dragon in doing so.’
Saker was painfully correct. The dragons had realised the fiendish design the moment their heads had been pinned to the floor. They were bound by more than just stout iron. No dragon could blow fire at Saker and miss, but no dragon could miss Towerdawn in the process. Scales were little defence at such close range. Towerdawn’s snout was only mere inches from the others’. It was a dastardly design. Saker looked extremely pleased with it.
Towerdawn looked at his dragons one by one. They all had a pained look in their jewel-flecked eyes. He bared his great fangs and struggled as much as he could, but the iron pinning him to the granite held fast. Saker’s throne barely wobbled. ‘Ingenious, isn’t it? Old beast?’ he smiled.
‘Unlike you, I am not above sacrificing myself for the good of my people,’ Towerdawn hissed. It was hard to talk with his jaw pressed so tightly to the ground. ‘My dragons will do what is right.’
His dragons, however, flashed him looks of defiance and sorrow. Towerdawn’s great heart sank.
Saker leant back in his chair. He looked infuriatingly comfortable. ‘Something tells me otherwise, Towerdawn. Your dragons are bound by honour. We Clansmen are bound by something a little stronger than that.’
‘Like greed?’
Saker kicked the dragon’s collar. ‘A desire to survive, kafflech.’
There was a rumble as a trio of Lost Clan dragons sauntered into the hall. One was huge, a burnt brown colour, with spines that curled like goat-horns. The one beside it was a fish-scale grey. She glistened wetly when the light caught her. Shimmers of blue and green ran across her flanks, like a mackerel. The last, and the one that led them, was a lithe black dragon with veins of red and orange mottling her skin, like lava seeping through granite cracks. Her horns were painted red. She had thin little slits for eyes, the colour of sulphur. This was Saker’s ride. Fellgrin, the cowardly cook had called her. Her forked-tongue smile certainly lived up to that title.
Saker nodded to her and she came to sit by his side. She casually rested a saw-bladed claw on the Old Dragon’s golden head, and tapped it rhythmically.
‘Have you found the fog-brewing trouble-makers yet?’ Saker spoke aloud, addressing the other dragons.
‘No, lord,’ answered the huge brown male, barely understandable in their strange accent. ‘Not a sign of them on the slopes. They must be inside the mountain. Perhaps holed up in the old springs. We found the ship in the fog too, but we lost sight of it. Turneye chased it, but he has yet to return.’
Not too far away, in one of the nests, two mages flinched and shuffled backward a little.
‘You lost it,’ came the reply, not so much a question as a damning fact. Then Saker waved his hand. ‘So be it. Ships do not bother me as much as accursed wizards do,’ spat Saker. ‘Get Kass and her witches on it. If your useless noses can’t sniff out the magick, then perhaps their finches can. Wherever they’re hiding, we shall dig them out.’
The mackerel-grey dragon piped up. Her voice was thin and high like a skald’s pipe. Odd, for a creature of that size. ‘And when we find them, lord?’ she asked.
Saker ran a hand across his ridged scalp. ‘Toss them from the summit, do what you will with what’s left.’
Fellgrin muttered something, and Towerdawn growled as her claw went a little too deep. Saker nodded and tapped his foot on his throne. ‘Save us the trouble of finding your wizards, old beast, and we may just spare them the fall.’
‘I have lived far too many years to not know a lie when I hear one,’ Towerdawn replied. Fellgrin jabbed at him with her claw again. The Old Dragon roared. It was hard to see, but she may have drawn blood through his scales. In the nest, Farden raised his head slightly so he could get a better view. He squinted at the Old Dragon. Something wet and golden tricked down Towerdawn’s neck. Fellgrin swung her canary-eyes in his direction and he quickly ducked back down, hoping the shadows had held him.
Fellgrin growled and Saker got to his feet. He adjusted his fur jacket and jumped from the throne. He landed on the floor with a clap of hard boots. ‘I’ll find them myself,’ he barked, and swept from his hall. His small entourage followed him. Even the riders were led away, still firmly at knifepoint. Only the five dragons and the slumbering wyrms remained.
Farden didn’t waste a second. He scrambled upright and down the side of the nest. The rock was roughly hewn, and there were plenty of handholds, but even so, he had to drop a level or two to the granite below. He landed hard and stumbled, but he managed not to break anything save for his pride. His tired legs yelled at him as he scurried across the open hall to the dragons.
They had heard boots on the stone. Their eyes swivelled madly as they tried to see who was approaching. Not a single one of them, Towerdawn least of all, expected to see a ghost striding into their tight little circle. ‘Of all the saviours Thron could have sent…’ he gasped.
Farden smiled. ‘I know. You’re stuck with me.’ He prodded at the green dragon’s collar, making the beast growl. He recognised him now. It was Glassthorn.
Tyrfing had caught up. ‘I think what the Old Dragon means is that he is surprised to see you,’ he whispered.
Farden shrugged. ‘I get that every time I look in a mirror,’ he said. He knelt by Towerdawn’s huge head and looked deep into his russet-gold eyes. The similarity between those great orbs and Farfallen’s took him aback. Towerdawn tasted the mage’s emotion. He tried on a comforting smile.
‘It is good to see you,’ he said in a low voice. ‘Even under such circumstances as these.’
Tyrfing knelt down by the Old Dragon’s head. He tested the collar, poking, prodding, rattling it until he was satisfied of its secrets. ‘What happened here?’
Towerdawn sighed. ‘The Lost Clans have been bitten hard by the Long Winter. They came with their hands out and their tails tucked between their legs, and we believed them. Every lie. Gave them pity. Fed them. Housed them. But they didn’t come for shelter, or for help. They came for our home, our springs, our breeding grounds.’
Each dragon growled at the mention of their sacred grounds. Even the riders were barely permitted to tread the soil of a breeding ground. It was the desecration of a breeding ground that had caused the Arka-Siren war many years before.
‘The snows and ice had driven them south, onto our borders. What we didn’t know was that the last of their grounds had been lost to a glacier. A terrible shame, in any dragon’s eyes. And so, they came here for ours.’ Towerdawn bared his teeth. ‘And I let them in. With open wings, too. They said the snows had driven them south. That they needed supplies for a little while, and then they would move on. I should have read Saker’s heart a little better, but he’s wilier than a snow fox. Bitter too. Centuries of jealousy and discontent have led to this. We should have expected it.’
‘It’s not the first time in history that a kingdom has been ambushed like this,’ Farden offered.
Towerdawn fixed him with a pained stare. ‘It is for us.’
‘I think I can get this open,’ hissed Tyrfing, eyeing the collar.
‘Do it,’ ordered the Old Dragon. Tyrfing seized the rough metal with both hands and held his breath. It wasn’t long before he was blushing a shade of crimson. Soon enough his hands began to glow. The metal began to blister, and Towerdawn set his jaw against the pain.