Raising Fire

by James Bennett

  Dust flew outwards, blasting the fleeing crowd. Ben rolled with Mauntgraul in the chaos, jaws, legs and tails locked, claws scraping at scales. Fighting for breath, he tried to muster fire, but the White Dog’s grip closed around his throat, lifting him off the ground like a doll and hurling him across the square.

  He found himself caught, a prisoner of gravity. Air screaming in his ears, the square became a blur interrupted by the screaming crowds, the Forbidden City wheeling past. In a heap of crumpled wings, he smashed into the Great Hall of the People. A cloud billowed from the grand government building as he touched down, pillars crashing in around him, shattering on scale and horn.

  After a minute or two filled with stars, he dragged himself up, rubble clattering off his spine. Bones straightening, he shook off his wings, looking around for Mauntgraul. Where is the bastard? Weak cries drew his gaze, reluctantly, to the littered ground between his claws. Dust-and-blood-covered shapes groaned in the debris, but he couldn’t think about that now, couldn’t let their anguish slow him. In the distance he heard the wail of sirens, and he prayed that the police were bringing meat wagons as well as rockets and guns.

  He leapt skyward, his wounds complaining about his renewed pursuit. Weaving above the panorama of the square, his nostrils flared, straining to catch the scent of his quarry. His eardrums gave him the bad news. Screams rose from somewhere to the south, and wheeling in that direction, he saw a pale shape snaking between the distant high-rises. Drawing in his wings, heart thudding, he followed.

  The high-rises marched into the suburbs, row upon row of them. Beijing provided a dragon with ample space to hide; the tall buildings were packed close in a concrete and steel maze. But Mauntgraul, he guessed, was only hiding for the fun of it. He isn’t afraid of me. The intermittent screams told Ben that the beast flew onward, wanton and without shame. He caught glimpses of him between the tower blocks. A wingtip brushing a window. A grille of fangs reflected in glass. On the tip of his tail, his sting went swishing back and forth, loaded with deadly green venom.

  Ben held his breath as he approached, coasting and silent. He stretched out a claw to grab Mauntgraul’s tail, keep its danger away from him. One strike of the spiked black barb on the end of it would make this the shortest battle of his life.

  Sensing his approach, Mauntgraul snapped his snout around, fangs bared. Too late, Ben realised that the dragon was only waiting for an audience, allowing him to catch up. He watched, gasping, as Mauntgraul dwindled in mid-air, his human form slipping through his closing grip. Feet first, he dropped like a stone towards the earth—towards the intercity railway line and the sleek shape of the bullet train speeding along it.

  Before Ben had a chance to react, Mauntgraul was thudding into a carriage roof, the train’s velocity absorbing the shock. Claws sprouting from his feet, he crouched against the smooth surface, catlike, secure. In a second, he was gone, a dark shape flashing under a motorway bridge and out of sight.

  Ben dived after him, his wings folding. Judging the distance, his bulk shrank in time with his descent, falling through the buffeting air. His snout and horns flowed around his skull, his flesh melting into a glowering face, his crimson hair streaming out behind him. Scales compressed, sliding over one another until his symbiotic suit wove around his body, black, glossy, emblazoned with wyrm tongue. He landed, gracelessly, on the last carriage of the train, denting the streamlined caboose. Throwing out a hand, his fingers formed a makeshift grappling hook, his legs flailing. Metal squealed as he gouged long lines in the roof, fixing himself to the train. Flat on his belly, he looked up with a curse, glaring at the White Dog.

  Mauntgraul was five or six carriages ahead. Ben could see the track curving ahead through an area of low buildings, the outskirts of the city. Claw over claw, the dragon was crawling towards the snub-nosed driver’s cab. If any passengers inside had heard them land, no one sounded an alarm, and the scenery continued to rocket past, the train speeding south at several hundred klicks per hour, a white missile with wheels. High-rises, factories and cranes were giving way to the flat plantations of the plain, the city skyline receding, the smog relenting in scraps of cloud. The morning sun shone through the haze, giving Ben a clearer view of his quarry—clearer than he’d like. The White Dog was perfectly still, his muscles holding the lustre of teak, bunched against the wind. When he glanced over his shoulder, Ben could feel his gaze across the distance, patient and fierce. He was waiting, all right. He wanted Ben to see him. Wanted Ben to watch.

  Satisfied with his attention, Mauntgraul gave a grin—and now for my next trick—and, keeping low to avoid the masts and wires zipping overhead, continued to crawl towards the engine. A dragon-sized claw in the gears would spell certain disaster for all.

  Limbs aching, the air raging in his ears, Ben hauled himself after him.

  The train shot over a river, past platforms, whistling alongside the highway parallel. Billboards and road signs smeared across Ben’s vision with the giddiness of some frantic cartoon. Another train roared past, the buffeting wind threatening to throw him from the carriage and into the surrounding fields.

  Looking up, he saw the White Dog changing. A sheen of scales rippled up over his buttocks and back, his black horns protruding from his skull. Half dragon, half man, Mauntgraul climbed to his feet, facing Ben with a grin. The move was ill judged. A railway mast smacked into his spine, the strut squealing with the impact. Jags of metal showered around him, thumping along the roof. Ben yelled as the debris tore at his arms, spraying blood down the carriages behind him. Grimacing, he pulled himself onto his hands and knees, spurred by the sight of the White Dog standing on top of the driver’s cab. Mauntgraul was unfolding his wings, the green-veined pale pennons springing from his tensed shoulder blades. Bunching his fists, he raised his arms over his head, his elongating horns lending him the look of a biblical demon.

  The train accelerated across the plain. The White Dog meant to step on the brakes.

  Ben pulled himself into a crouch, preparing to leap the space between them, rugby-tackle the dragon from the train. As he did so, something caught the corner of his eye, an object to his right, moving faster than the traffic on the highway. Faster than the smear of the buildings and fields. Fighting against the rushing air, his eyebrows rose despite himself, his lips a puzzled sneer.

  Something was racing beside the train. The object was moving too fast to trace, a motion blur rippling in its wake, a green-gold streak through the day. As it drew parallel, Ben made out a muzzle, a windswept mane and galloping hooves.

  What the hell? Unless he’d lost the plot completely, even a racehorse at full tilt couldn’t keep up with a speeding train. And to his surprise, the beast was steadily overtaking, leaving that dazzling blur, the emerald sheen of its hide.

  Before he could question the newcomer’s presence, the galloping beast leapt for the train. A beast leapt, but a woman landed, alighting on the carriage ahead, halfway between Ben and his goal. The impact shuddered under him, heavy feet on steel.

  No. Not feet. Hooves.

  In a second, the woman had steadied herself with a sword of some kind, stabbing the blade into the roof. Her equine form was gone—a shape thrown off—but her skin-tight suit matched the colour of its hide, a dark green silk, the cuffs a burnished gold. She held her arms close to her body, her slender muscles coiled like springs, a stance that Ben recognised from a thousand kung fu movies. Another sword appeared in her hand, a mirror to the first. The single-edged blades were broad and short, all curving crossguards and knuckle-bows. Fancy, but sharp enough to slice through scales? He doubted it.

  Crouching, her eyes were only for the White Dog.

  “Get out of the way!” The wind snatched his words away. “He’s—”

  Did she know? Did she care? Mauntgraul’s appearance, horned and clawed, betrayed the fact that he wasn’t a man. Just as her hooves—shit, her presence—had betrayed her. When she shot a look at him, her long dark braid flying around her face, he
saw determination, not fear. A silent warning, too. Stay back. She was Chinese, perhaps in her early thirties, but her eyes were anything but human. She was a Remnant, that much was clear. Her breed, however, was unknown to him, originating from Asian climes. From unfamiliar myths.

  Whatever she was, listening to him wasn’t one of them. Before Mauntgraul could bring his fists down on the driver’s cab, she was on the move again, her hooves thrusting her forward, closing the gap between them. Arms held out, swords level, she leapt over a passing mast as if it was a skipping rope and went sailing downward, a hoof connecting with the back of Maunt’s skull.

  The White Dog staggered forward, fighting for balance. He lost his footing, the smooth surface defying his claws, and went tumbling down the nose of the train. The woman landed in the space where he had stood moments before, sheathing her swords on her back.

  Ben was sending mental applause when Mauntgraul reappeared on the carriage roof, an arm whipping out, lashing at her legs. He cried out, but she was already flipping out of reach, climbing the pummelling air like a ladder. When she landed again, her hooves slipped on the polished surface and she flattened herself against the roof, preventing herself from tumbling from the train. The move, however, cost her the advantage. Pressed to steel, she couldn’t avoid Mauntgraul’s tail, swollen to draconic proportions and whipping out like a flail.

  Ben winced as its length crashed into her, swatting her like a fly. It must’ve hurt, but the woman didn’t vent a scream. In silence, she relinquished her grip on the sword hilt. She bounced once, twice along the carriage roof and went flashing past Ben, a green-gold tangle of limbs. He reached out, making a grab for her, groaning as his fingers closed on air and he watched her roll down another carriage and slip off the train, vanishing from view.

  Nice try.

  He had no time to ponder her intervention. Mauntgraul, in full dragon form now, was rising atop the driver’s cab. His wings fanned out, keeping most of his weight off the carriage, his hind legs scraping steel. Beyond him, Ben made out an approaching interchange, the roads looping in a raised concrete knot around some satellite town of Beijing.

  The bullet train sped on, shooting onto a viaduct alongside the interchange, fifty-odd feet above a river. Ben didn’t need to see the glint in Mauntgraul’s eyes to realise that he had chosen this site for his killing blow.

  Somewhere, distantly, he heard the screech of brakes, smoke from the traumatised engine billowing around him. He could only imagine the driver’s terror when the scaled demon had rolled across the windshield, a clutch of claws and fangs. But the driver had slammed on the brakes way too late. The train would take about a minute to slow, a minute that Ben no longer had.

  Up ahead, Mauntgraul was twisting his claws, digging deeper into metal. Thus secured, he stretched out his neck, a scarred snake bristling with knives. There came a wash of flame, acid green, the heat inside him escaping his lungs.

  Then the White Dog screamed.

  Dissonance pulsed along the train. Inertia struck, gravity trying to peel Ben from the carriage. Moments before the sound wave followed, the surface of the carriage rippled like water. An overhead mast buckled inward, disintegrating into shards. Wires snickered overhead, sizzling and then evaporating, reduced to sparks and dust. All the carriage windows blew inwards, the sound like corkscrews jammed into his ears. The roof under him was melting away, liquefied metal streaming between his claws. Skull ringing, Ben found himself flying backwards, the White Dog’s shriek blasting him from the train.

  Deafened, he watched Mauntgraul paddle his wings, thrusting skyward. He could feel the judder in the air as the dragon shifted the cab from the viaduct. Its derailment shuddered down the length of the train, the carriage wheels skewing, dancing from the tracks. The next moment, the connected carriages jackknifed, torpedoing one over the other, wrenched upward by gravity and speed. The foremost cars slewed across the bridge, crashing headlong into the huge cantilevers supporting the structure. The rear carriages hit the obstruction with a thump, an impact that Ben felt in his guts and balls, his teeth biting through his tongue.

  Whoomph.

  Pluming smoke, one carriage burst through the latticed fence of the viaduct, sailing across the gulf and smashing into the interchange, crumpling like a used cigarette. Tyres squealed, the traffic up there skidding to a halt. The remaining carriages took an unscheduled detour and shot over the edge of the bridge, plunging into the waiting gorge, the river exploding in fountains of dirt.

  Ben observed the crashing train in slow, shuddering seconds. The sky spun, spewing steel and flame. Then his back hit something hard and cold, sparing him the scene.

  When he came round, people were screaming.

  “Your English king feared my vengeance.” And closer to him, he heard Mauntgraul, a winged shadow blocking out the sun. “That’s why you and the envoy chased me to Zhongdu, all those centuries ago.”

  Ben shook his head. The old serpentine language, wyrm tongue, hissed inside his skull, wrenching him back to awareness. He took in his surroundings, a foggy patchwork. The wide river. Carriages protruding from the water. The bank on which he lay, human-shaped and covered in mud. The broken bridge above him. The bodies strewn across the slope. Scraps of metal. Bloody limbs. Some, he noticed, moving weakly. Survivors from the crash. He took in the interchange next to the bridge. The concrete pillars loomed over him, impassive mourners by a grave.

  And the White Dog. The crowds peering over the edge of the expressway were screaming at the dragon as well as the carnage. Camera phones flashed in the sun. Sirens wailed, distant but approaching fast. Drifting smoke obscured the sea of faces, masking the tears, the pointing fingers. Everything stank of fire and death.

  Ben groaned, tasting blood.

  “Rakegoyle,” he said. “She burned London Bridge to the ground.”

  Feebly, Ben tried to sit up, howling as pain shot through him, igniting every nerve. He collapsed in the mud again, whimpering. Whatever had happened to his spine, his extraordinary flesh had yet to heal it. Mauntgraul might as well have nailed him to the ground.

  “Did the old bitch have any choice?” the dragon spat, his fangs coming closer, a black portcullis. His breath was the stench of an abattoir on a hot day. His tail arched over his shoulder, the barbed tip swishing back and forth.

  “But you brought her down, didn’t you?” It wasn’t a question; it was a statement of fact. “You killed her. Your own kind.”

  Ben found that he had no words. Mauntgraul stamped down by his shoulder, his claw throwing up muck, the ground shuddering.

  “Didn’t you?”

  “To save us … all …”

  But the White Dog was roaring now, lost in his rage. His voice shrill, a door off its hinges, banging in a high wind. Bordering on hysteria.

  Ben wanted to reach out, explain the sacrifices he’d made.

  It doesn’t have to be this way …

  He never got the chance. Mauntgraul’s tail came spearing down, lightning quick, the barb on the end of it striking Ben’s chest.

  “You killed my mother.”

  PART TWO

  Death Music

  Nature is not human hearted.

  Lao Tzu

  Mount Song, 1356

  In the stance of the crane, one knee raised and tensed, Jia stood in the temple courtyard as her master and friend Blaise Von Hart lowered another stone onto the stack that trembled atop her head.

  “To be youxia is to be an example,” he told her, and she could swear his pale face was holding back a smirk. “In the old days, the youxia wandered the land, upholding justice, setting right to wrong. You would call them knights-errant in my part of the world. In Zhongguo, they were warrior monks, more likely to break your head than bless it. The youxia—knowing darkness, knowing chaos. Choosing light.”

  She hissed something through her teeth that may or may not have been yes, teacher.

  “The way of the youxia. It is to walk the golden mean. To be the balanc
e in the world.”

  “Shi … laoshi …”

  He is enjoying this.

  Sweat trickled down Jia’s brow, stinging her eyes. Sweat as bitter as the pain in her heart. Upon her arrival at the temple three weeks ago, she had committed the unpardonable sin of not being male; her presence breaking the traditions of centuries, all the known customs. And the monks appeared to take daily pleasure in reminding her of this. In turn, she projected her displeasure at all the men here, apart from her thin, white-haired and typically objective master. Besides, knowing his true nature, could she honestly think of Von Hart as a man? He was Xian. Fay. Different. Other. Perhaps even more than a man.

  She had never wanted to come here, had only done so on the orders of Toghon Temur. The Khan, the sixteenth ruler of the Yuan Dynasty, was nothing whatsoever like the Great Kublai. Like all the petty, weak—and thankfully brief—khans who had succeeded the Wise One, Toghon stood like an ant in his shadow. Small and constantly drunk, his head barely rose from the bosoms of his concubines to attend to matters of state. No wonder the empire was crumbling.

  Still, her duty, her oath stood firm: “to serve the Emperor of Zhongguo for all the time to come.”

  Von Hart grasped her reluctance only too well, not that it made any difference. He spoke of honour simply to prod her, she thought. The faces of the monks remained impassive whenever they looked up from inking their scrolls or lighting the incense at the sight of her whimpering on the ground, once again beaten by her training, but their frowns spoke volumes. Naturally, with her inherent talent of perception, she sensed their silent disapproval at her presence here, a woman in the temple, of all things! She could understand their resentment, even if it galled her. Her brothers had left everything behind—even their shoes—to take up their place in the temple. She had not chosen to come. The monks might have no choice but to tolerate her, her mythical nature and her pathetic attempts at wushu, but she would not give them the satisfaction of letting them see her bested. No, never that. And so her ordeal continued.