by Ben Galley
And a hawk it was. The poor thing was scrabbling madly at the spray-stained glass. A Siren hawk. It had a bell on one foot and a tiny scroll tied to the other. Roiks rushed to open the window for it and it flapped its way in. With a keen screech it circled the room once and then flapped onto the table, tapping its claws on Lerel’s pile of wooden coins. Roiks wriggled the tiny scroll free from its leg. Its job now done, the hawk began to preen.
Roiks read half-mumbled, half-aloud. Loki and Lerel caught little snatches of the message. ‘…trouble… fighting way out… main harbour… south and ‘round the… mists lifting… bloody hell…’
Loki cocked his head to one side. ‘Is that part of the message?’
Roiks tossed the scroll onto the table. He made for the door. ‘Think it should’ve been, sir. This needs to go to Nuka now,’ Roiks rattled off a reply. He was already halfway gone by the time he finished. The door slammed with a thud.
Loki reached for the scroll and read it quickly for himself:
Sirens in trouble. Lost Clans taken over. Fighting way out. Escaping north to main harbour. Meet us there. Be ready to fight your way south and around the headland to go north. Be quick. Mists will be lifting very soon.
‘Hmm,’ was all Loki could say.
‘What is it?’ asked Lerel, already on her feet, eyes wide.
Loki went to stand at the open window. He ducked his head so he could look at the sky. The mists were already fading. The high sun, now a bright patch in the heavens rather than a lost rumour, was busy burning them away. The sounds of waves slapping the shore and the mewing of frightened gulls grew louder by the minute. Loki craned his neck even further. It might have been a trick of the paling mists, but there were great shadows circling above, dark and dangerous.
‘Looks like we’re going north,’ said Loki, nonchalant as could be.
Books and fire make truly ugly partners. Theirs is a brief relationship. Passionate, true, but in the way that a fight or a battle is passionate. A whirlwind romance, as destructive as both, like the hot chaos wrought by a wife discovering a cheating husband. They should be kept wholeheartedly apart, for the better of themselves and the bystander.
But sometimes, romances such as this cannot be avoided.
With a roar that was pinched into a scream, Shivertread burst from the door-frame in a cartwheel of fire and flailing wings. A cloud of flame and smoke chased him as he barrelled into an overturned bookshelf. The solid oak shattered like brittle glass. The dragon writhed in the wreckage as men and soldiers scattered. Books and splinters flew in all directions, falling prey to the pools of fire that had flooded the entrance of the library.
They had been found.
Clansmen poured through the door like rats squirming through a hole in a sinking ship. They brandished shields, spears, and burning torches. They chanted as they charged forward to tackle the ranks of Sirens, chanting words of hate and fear in their own private tongue, in their own fearsome rhythm. A dragon marched behind them, plodding forward in a way that didn’t speak of laziness, nor ponderousness, but of sheer size and muscle. It had barely managed to squeeze its wings into the corridor. Fire poured from its grinning jaws as it spewed a jet of scorching flame into the library. It spread across the ceiling like a second lick of paint; first yellow, then black and sooty as it died. The air became thick and tough as the fire consumed what it could. Screams and yells from the people joined the clatter of feet and the roar of battle. The library was suddenly a living, writhing thing, caught in the throes of panic.
Eyrum was suddenly in the middle of it all, dashing through the labyrinthine defences they had spent weeks fortifying. Half of it now smouldered. The clansmen were tossing their torches as far into the library as they could. It was disastrous. Nothing encouraged a lick of flame like piles of books whose business it had been to keep as dry as possible for the last thousand years.
‘Form up! Arrows! Wizards! Dragons!’ Eyrum barked orders like a rabid dog as he sprinted in a zigzag towards the entrance. He swiped aside a flaming torch as it flew at him. He batted it to the floor and stamped it to death. ‘Get some water on these books!’
There was a sudden collective hiss as scores of jugs and tankards doused the defences. It was followed swiftly by a clash of metal as the advancing clansmen collided with the spears of the Sirens. Shivertread was in the middle of it all, spinning around like a crazed beast, full of claws and teeth.
Eyrum could already see the outcome of this bout. Barely three seconds at the front line and it was already painfully obvious. He could feel it in the furious movements of his men, the jab and twitch of desperation. He could feel it in the heat burning his skin. Hear it in the crackling of the books and pounding of feet. The enemy was flooding in faster than they could hold them. It was becoming bloody and vicious around the doorway. The clansmen were pinched between fierce opposition from the front and eager comrades pushing in from behind. As men fell dead or trampled, some actually began to climb the grotesque pile of the fallen so that they could leap the defences and break through.
Eyrum grit his teeth and ran one of them through with his spear. He yanked his spear out of the man’s chest with a squelch and a scream and snarled. He hadn’t had the time to fetch his infamous axe. What he wouldn’t have given…
‘Fall back to the second line!’ he yelled, and heard his order echoing through his men. The wizards unleashed a barrage of light and ice to keep the clansmen at bay while the soldiers retreated. Thin, slender women darted to and fro with knives, casting spells that flashed with blue and green light. Screams followed them as they poured through a gap in the book-walls. Witches. In the smoke and steam, their little finches could be seen flitting about, pecking at anything they could find.
‘Forward in the centre!’ came an eager shout from one of the sergeants. Eyrum cursed and was about to countermand it when there came a sound of cracking whips, of panicked cries and yelling. Great orbs of light began to detonate with light and fire between the shelves.
An Arkmage had come to the rescue.
Eyrum dashed to the centre of their retreating line, dragging men with him as they ran. Together they formed up behind Tyrfing as he waded into the fray. He shimmered with light and blue fire. There were two wizards now at his side. One had an arrow through his neck, but he staunchly ignored it. They were holding books at arm’s length and repeatedly slamming them shut. They closed with thunderclaps and bursts of lightning.
It was a brave display, but in the end, there were simply too many.
The invaders ferreted out the weaknesses in the defences and managed to pincer the centre of the library. They struck at the rear, where the dragons had been left to fight. Fire bloomed in the smoky gloom. A great wail echoed through the library as a dragon roared. There is a certain roar that only a dragon in a certain situation can make. It is not pleasant. It comes with nails in the heart. The Sirens fought like the possessed when they heard it, and for a moment the tide was turned again.
Farden stood on the right flank. His foot was firmly pinning the Grimsayer to the floor, and he battled with the best of them. His sword was blooded three times over, and he had to resort to a two-handed grip to keep it from slipping. He hacked and parried, slashed and sliced as the clansmen kept coming. While his uncle summoned whirlwinds, Farden was one himself. He stabbed at throats and slit arteries, scored bones and severed limbs. Screams and blood bathed him. A line of dead people queued at his feet.
Tyrfing and Eyrum were soon driven to his side. The centre had been lost, and they were now falling back into the very depths of the library. The lines of battle had been scattered and smashed to pieces; the fighting was anywhere and everywhere, and by the gods it was brutal. There was one sliver of mercy, however, and that was the fact that the entrance the library was now fully aflame. Fire had consumed the walls and lines of books and shelves, and in a kindness, had created a wall of defence against any reinforcements.
‘We need to get out of here!’ Farden sh
outed, in a brief lull in the tumult, one of those awkward moment in battle where one notices amongst the roar the groaning of the half-dead, the sluggish crawling of the wounded, and slow drip, drip, drip of blood. The moment where the smell hits, and lingers. It is in these moments that horror treads.
But these men were veterans. They shrugged it aside like ash on the shoulder.
‘That we do!’ shouted Tyrfing.
There was a sour look underneath the blood spatter on Eyrum’s face. ‘As do my people, mages.’
Tyrfing looked shocked. ‘We would never sugg…’ he said.
Eyrum cut him off. ‘We have been tunnelling an escape route. We’ve had to be gentle and slow, using the old ways of dragon-fire to bore a hole into the rock and down to the mountainside. It was why we had the wizards make the fog.’
‘Is it finished?’
‘Almost. Nothing a hammer and muscle cannot finish.’
Farden slapped the Siren on the back and then bent to drag the Grimsayer from the floor. He could have sworn it whispered something in his ear as he lifted it on his shoulder. It was hard to tell in the roar of battle. ‘Muscle you have plenty of, my friend. Let’s go!’
Eyrum led the mages through the pandemonium to the very back of the library, where the Sirens had begun to prepare their final stand. Bloody soldiers and wizards had formed a line across the furthermost alcove, between the rock and a blackened window. Wives and children huddled behind them, weeping. The rest had gathered what weapons they could find. Even the farmer was there, with his pitchfork levelled. He almost skewered Eyrum as he and the mages jogged out of the fog.
‘Is this it?’ Eyrum demanded, knocking the pitchfork aside with his spear. He made an ugly, fearsome sight with his gnarled face all bespattered with blood. A few of the children whimpered. Eyrum paid them no heed. ‘Is this all there are?’ he demanded again. A few of the soldiers answered with nods and murmurs. ‘Then get them into the tunnel, and smash your way through, as planned. You, and you,’ he said, pointing to two burly soldiers, ‘take the hammers.’ He pointed to a trio of thick hammers that had been left leaning against the near wall. They were huge, iron-headed beasts, made for crushing. Eyrum reached for the third and left his spear in its place.
‘Where is your ship?’ he turned on the mages.
‘In the fog. South, probably,’ Tyrfing answered.
‘If we’re taking the same route, then we’ll need it in the harbour.’
Tyrfing pulled a face. ‘Have you got a hawk?’
They found their hawk in a nook that had so far been spared the carnage of the fighting. That said, it raged painfully close. So close in fact, that while Farden and Tyrfing were seeing to the hawk, Eyrum stood a dozen paces away, calling to his soldiers, and breaking the skulls of any clansmen that ventured near. The sounds, sporadic like punctuation to his shouting, were nothing short of sickening. There would be a gruff yell from Eyrum, then a clatter of boots. Then, a split-second of silence as a cursory identification took place, then a great whoosh, ended by a muffled yelp and a wet crunch of bone and face as they met iron and momentum.
Farden had counted twelve so far. Blood was beginning to pool around his boots.
Tyrfing was talking to a nervous, greying Siren that was hobbling back and forth, tending to his frightened hawks. His wispy grey hair was like a wild shrub. It seemed to explode in all directions. He never seemed to stop moving, not even for a second. Farden recognised him, but he couldn’t put his finger on why.
‘I don’t care which one. Just a fast hawk for a fast message!’ Tyrfing was blurting.
The old Siren was wringing his hands and staring over at Eyrum, who was busy twirling his heavy hammer as if it were a willow branch. He didn’t seem to hear the Arkmage. ‘Old man!’ Tyrfing clicked his fingers in front of his face.
‘My hawks,’ he stuttered, ‘they aren’t used to such conditions. Fire. War. We miss our tower.’ More wringing of the hands. Tyrfing shook his head and snatched a scrap of parchment and a quill from the nearby table. It was soiled with hawk-mess.
Farden stepped in. He grabbed the old Siren’s hands and shook them gently. ‘The finest and the fastest, which one is he?’
‘It’s a she,’ the man seemed to drift out of his frightened reverie a little. ‘Always a she.’
‘Well, which one is it?’
The man turned to his hawks, all three of them, and stroked the head of the middle one. She was a small beast, a darker shade than the others, with a white chest and two thin feathers, like that of heron’s, trailing from her head and down across her back. Her hood covered her eyes, its bells jangled as she moved. ‘She is.’
Tyrfing finished his message and rolled it up without even waiting for the ink to dry. ‘We’ll use her then,’ he ordered, holding out the little scroll like a flaming poker.
The old man hesitated. ‘Dragons,’ he bit his lip. ‘They’ve been catching my hawks. They eat them.’
Farden pushed him gently towards the table. ‘She’s better off out there than in here!’
‘Quickly!’ Tyrfing waved the scroll.
There was a scream from behind them as Eyrum missed his mark, but only by a little. The following screams, those of the Siren finishing his work, were unmentionable. The three bystanders tried their level best to ignore them.
‘Fine!’ said the Siren, as he deftly twirled a scrap of twine around the hawk’s leg. He lifted her hood and fastened its bell to her other foot.
‘Farden, the window if you please!’ Tyrfing yelled. Farden swiped a smouldering book from the bloody floor; a heavy tome that had a cover made of polished mahogany. He looked at the row of blackened windows behind the table.
‘Any in particular?’ he asked.
‘Just throw the godsdamned book!’ came the startlingly loud reply.
Farden threw it as hard as his tired arms could. There was a sharp crack as the book met the windowpane. Only one could win, and the book sailed out into the grey, leaving a gaping hole and shaft of bright light in its wake. The fog was fading indeed. The old Siren ran to the window, hawk on his arm. ‘A ship, you say?’ he asked Farden.
‘That’s right!’
The Siren whispered something urgent in the bird’s ear and then held his arm up to the smashed window. ‘Fly!’ he shouted, and the hawk sprang from his arm. Gone. Snatched by the air.
Farden turned to his uncle. ‘What about us?’
‘We stay until the Sirens are safe, and then we make for the Waveblade.’
Farden flashed him a look that wore the frayed edges of disbelief. With a grunt, he picked up the Grimsayer. ‘You make it sound so easy.’
‘I’m learning from you.’
The two mages quickly made their way back to the back of the library with Eyrum and a gang of soldiers in tow. The smoke and heat were becoming unbearable now. The fires were spreading at a rapid rate, leaping from shelf to precious shelf. Most of the clansmen had all but retreated, lost in the maze of burning defences. A pitiful few Sirens limped out of the thick smoke to join them, Shivertread and a few remaining dragons in tow. One of the other dragons had fallen. Another was still fighting.
The sound of hammering fell silent as they reached the rear of the library. Now the escapees were pouring into the tunnel as fast as they could. The smoke vied with the dust for a space in their lungs. Coughing was rife; the sharp slapping of its echoes against the freshly carved rock sounded like a macabre applause, congratulating their escape.
Only Eyrum, Farden, and Tyrfing stayed behind. They were busy dealing with a few clansmen who had stumbled upon the escape. They fought them savagely, though the smoke made their ferocious movements seem dreamlike and sluggish. Eyrum could barely see the tip of his hammer, just its steel shaft and the whorls in the smoke it made. Every other moment he felt the wet thud as it collided with something unlucky. Tyrfing and Farden were his flanks. One cast sharp, deadly spells at anything that dared come his way. The other had his bloodied steel, staying still with
one foot on a giant of a book.
Farden spat blood. A fist had caught him in the mouth. ‘We need to cover their escape, otherwise we’ll be fighting all the way down the mountainside!’
Tyrfing looked up from his casting. ‘What would you suggest?’
‘You two are the ones with the hammer and the spells. Cave the tunnel’s mouth in,’ Farden snapped.
‘And what about us?’
Farden shrugged. ‘Windows?’
Tyrfing looked horrified. ‘It’s sheer mountain out there.’
‘Not all of it. It’s scree below these. I saw when the hawk escaped.’
There was a roar somewhere in front of them, and in the grey darkness of the library they saw a great explosion of flame. Dark shapes were momentarily painted against the smoke. Many, many, dark shapes, the light turning them ghoulish and twisted. The three dashed to the nearest window.
‘You’d best be right, nephew.’
‘Check for yourself!’
Eyrum uttered a guttural roar as he took his hammer to the nearest windowpane. Light poured into the alcove, showering them and the dirty floor. The men shielded their eyes, wincing. The colour of the blood and gore that drenched their clothes and skin was suddenly very, very red.
Whilst Tyrfing put his fist to the rock arch of the tunnel, whispering intently to himself, Eyrum and Farden looked over the splintered edge of the glass. ‘See? Scree.’
‘Sheer scree,’ replied Eyrum pointedly.
‘Scared?’ asked Farden. He was.
‘Never!’ Eyrum laughed then. Such an easy laugh. Farden didn’t care if it was false. It gave him a little courage.
The ear-splitting sound of cracking rock made them duck for cover. Tyrfing’s spell had broken the wall in a hundred different places. All it took was a tap from his dusty knuckle, and the mouth of the escape tunnel imploded, sealing itself solid with a puff of thick grey dust. The Sirens were safe. ‘Ready?’ he shouted.