The Copper Promise

by Jennifer Williams

  ‘Are you strong enough, Aaron Frith, Lord of the Blackwood? You are no mage.’ The voices were full of mockery, he realised, somewhere underneath the pain. ‘The lake will destroy you.’

  Frith, unable to move or even to think beyond the agony, pitched forward and felt the shimmering waters close over his head. The last thing he heard before the water plugged his ears was a hundred newly opened throats, screaming for victory.

  12

  Wydrin pulled Sebastian upright, wincing at the sharp pain in her arm, but the big knight only slumped back down onto the steps, his eyes rolling up to the whites.

  ‘Is he …? He hasn’t …?’

  ‘We will know soon,’ said Marshum. Around them the rumble was now a continuous roar. Dust and debris, shaken loose by the commotion, was floating down from the ceiling to cover them in a thin grey blanket. Stones and rocks jumped loose from the steps, so that dark holes appeared all around them.

  ‘This god,’ shouted Wydrin. ‘What is it, exactly?’

  ‘A terrible being,’ said Marshum. ‘A creature of unspeakable evil. She lives only to feast and destroy, and only ruin brings pleasure to her heart.’

  ‘Yes, but what is it? I would feel a lot better if I had some idea of what was about to climb up through the floor at me.’

  ‘Oh, it won’t be her,’ said the second Culoss. The blast from Frith’s bomb had torn away some of the bandages from his left side, leaving him limping and ragged. ‘She will send her army up first.’

  ‘Her army?’ Wydrin looked down at the nearest hole. There was movement there, down in the dark. ‘These mages can’t have been very wise, to have interred an army down there with her.’

  ‘They did not,’ snapped Marshum. ‘She has been breeding them.’

  At that moment, the first of the soldiers arrived. A slim arm, green as a spring apple, appeared over the nearest hole. The hands were long and sharp, ending in curving black claws. The hand scrabbled for purchase and the rest of the creature climbed into view. It was human in shape and aspect, even beautiful in a way, tall and lithe, with a long elegant face and large, almond-shaped eyes that were entirely yellow save for a slim black slit running down the centre. Snake’s eyes, thought Wydrin, her stomach turning over. There were luminescent scales on the creature’s arms, forehead and shoulders, and long silvery white hair flowed down its back. The armour it wore looked almost a living thing itself; huge golden scales twisted and curved to fit the sharp angles of the creature, and where that was too cumbersome a fine shimmering mail covered the body, so delicate it looked like silver cloth. The soldier smiled, revealing white, pointed teeth.

  Behind the beautiful soldier, more were appearing every second, every one as silvered and perfect as the last. And each carried a long thin sword made of blue crystal. As they swung their weapons, the air filled with a sonorous whine.

  ‘They’re all … It’s an army of women.’

  ‘Not women,’ said Marshum. ‘Not close to human, no.’

  Wydrin stumbled away from them, pulling Sebastian with her down towards the edge of the lake. The scaled soldiers watched closely, their finely angled faces breaking into a hundred identical smiles. There were more coming through the door now, edging down the steps. Their bare feet were eerily quiet on the stone.

  Pushing Sebastian’s limp body behind her, Wydrin drew both her daggers and carefully kissed their hilts. Watching the warriors approach, she noticed that some of them weren’t quite as finished as the others – a few were missing their armour, some their fine white hair – but when their feet touched the crimson trail left by Sebastian’s wound, golden scales would push from their bodies as though they were made of dough, and long claws sprouted from the ends of their fingers.

  Wydrin took a deep breath, and looked inside herself for a calm place, a place to stand. She remembered her father, black-bearded and booming, taking her out in the little cog Haven’s Champion for a quick jaunt across the Stony Sea.

  ‘Find a quiet place inside you, my little kit,’ he had said. ‘Place your feet against the deck and listen to the sea. She’ll tell you all you need to know.’

  ‘He was full of bilge, my father, but he was right about that,’ she said in a low voice. Marshum and the ragged Culoss looked up at her in confusion, but she shook her head. ‘Never mind. Are you ready?’

  ‘It is hopeless,’ stammered Marshum. ‘The army has risen. She will be close behind.’

  The scaled warriors edged closer, with looks of almost polite curiosity on their beautiful faces. Wydrin shrugged.

  ‘That may well be, but I’m not dying down here without taking a few of these bitches with me.’

  The Culoss exchanged a look, and then produced their blades from the palms of their hands in one fluid movement. Wydrin grinned.

  ‘That’s the spirit.’

  As if sensing their intent, the closest scaled warrior stepped up and swung her blue crystal sword at Wydrin, but the Copper Cat evaded it easily, bringing her own daggers around to clash against the blade. The steel striking against the crystal made a strange, high-pitched whine and the scaled warrior took a step back, her teeth bared.

  ‘Not heard the ring of steel before, huh?’

  Wydrin reached in under her guard and Frostling pricked at the pale skin. Blood as deep and green as emeralds bubbled up at the warrior’s waist, and Wydrin stepped away before she could retaliate.

  ‘They bleed,’ she told the Culoss. ‘They can be killed.’ She showed them the green blood on her dagger, but when she looked up, the warrior she had cut was laughing. The light from the lake glittered off her pointy teeth.

  ‘These ones fight,’ she said. Her voice was warm and slightly husky, a voice dipped in honey and rolled in smoke. ‘Mother will enjoy that.’

  ‘What are you supposed to be, anyway?’ called Wydrin. ‘Your armour is gaudier than a tart’s jewellery box.’

  ‘I am the Two Hundred and Eighty-First. We carry your death on our blades, and we are many.’

  As one, the scaled warriors advanced, blue crystal blades flashing. Wydrin and the Culoss found themselves with their backs to the lake, and there was nothing to it but to fight. It could be worse, thought Wydrin. This is a death worthy of a hundred stories.

  Grinning, she became a blur of arms and steel as she threw off one attack after another, slicing green flesh where she could and watching for the spatter of green blood on the stones. Steel clashed against crystal until the strange ringing became a sort of music, echoing in the cavernous room. The Culoss were as swift and deadly as they had been back in their hibernation chamber, and they carved limbs from the scaled warriors as though they were slicing through saplings in a wood, but all the time more snake-eyed women were climbing through the holes in the steps.

  A blue flash skimmed past Wydrin’s stomach and she staggered backwards into the lake to avoid disembowelment. The glittering waters splashed harmlessly against her ankles, and she had a moment to wonder whether they were truly as magical as the Culoss claimed, but then the next scaled woman was upon her, all pointed teeth and streaming white hair. Wydrin pushed her blow aside and thrust Frostling up at her face; the warrior looked rather less beautiful with a pair of ruined eyes, and she fell head first into the water.

  ‘Good thing this place isn’t healing any more,’ she shouted to Marshum and the ragged Culoss, ‘or the bastards would never stay down!’ She turned back to face the next opponent, only for her vision to explode in a confusion of black stars. Dimly she felt the warm rush of blood across her face, and suddenly it was difficult to tell which way was up and which was down.

  Wydrin swore bitterly and blindly held her daggers up in front of her.

  Within the waters of the lake, Lord Frith burned.

  A thousand tiny demons with teeth made of fire nibbled at every inch of his skin. He was curled up in a ball, trying to keep his limbs close, trying to force the pain away, but it was impossible. Distantly he could hear the mages laughing as he suffered.

/>   Why? he demanded, with the tiny part of his mind the pain had not consumed. You have no need of the power any longer, why?

  Because you are no mage, they answered. You are not strong enough, little man. You presume to greatness, and for that you will suffer.

  Suffer? He remembered his father’s face the last time he’d seen it, contorted with fear and rage as the doors crashed down. He remembered the dungeon, the small room that smelled of blood and shit, the podgy but deft fingers of Yellow-Eyed Rin. The knives that had danced across his skin, the glowing red metal that had caressed his flesh, over and over and over again. He thought of the fat man’s watery yellow eyes, looking down at his suffering with pleasure. With satisfaction. With greed.

  A wave of rage overcame him then, and with wonder he realised it was hotter than the pain. More real than the pain. He sought it, caught it within his breast and nurtured it.

  They are enjoying this, he told himself. They are watching me writhe and weep and it feeds them. The fury became a white-hot heat, and the pain became a bellows. I have faced this before, and it didn’t end me then, either.

  Instead of fighting the pain, he welcomed it. Every nerve ending in his body lit up and sang. So much pain that he thought his mind might come away from its tethers entirely and leave him gibbering in the centre of the lake, but no, he was still there. He was stronger than it.

  With a grunt, he rose shaking from the waters. Inside his head he heard the gasps of the mages. Their confusion and terror was as sweet as the taste of a fine wine in the back of his throat.

  How can you do this? they screamed. You are no mage!

  He blinked the water from his eyes and looked down at his hands. The fingernails had all grown back, his leg no longer stabbed with pain when he leaned his weight on it, and when he pressed a hand to the side of his head … a wonder! His ear, as good as new. But it was more than that – there was a sense of coiled energy within his chest, a churning of light and sound that he could almost see. All the hair on his arms was standing on end, his skin rigid with goosebumps. And the pain was gone. All of it. He began to laugh, until he saw the scene around him.

  Sebastian lay at the edge of the lake, his face turned towards the distant door, while Wydrin stood over his body. The two Culoss were there too, their blades flashing away as they fought off the strangest-looking army Frith had ever seen. Hundreds of women in golden armour were pressing through the doors with icy-blue swords clutched in their hands. Their skin was as green as jade, and their faces seemingly finely carved from that rare stone. He grasped for his sword, only to find he’d lost it in the waters of the lake.

  ‘Wydrin! We need to retreat!’

  Wydrin turned her head at the sound of his voice, a spasm of anger briefly replacing the fear on her face.

  ‘You!’ she cried. ‘You dirty, low, cowardly—’

  The Culoss were whirling like spinning tops, keeping the terrible warriors at bay, and Wydrin had done her fair share of fighting too, judging by the thick green fluid encrusting her daggers, but she’d also taken a blow to the head, and one side of her face was slick with blood. The warriors appeared to be unending, but they seemed strangely reluctant to come near the blue lake despite the fact that it would take mere seconds to outflank the small group.

  ‘Get behind me,’ he shouted as he splashed up to them. ‘Get into the lake, there’s nothing in there to harm us now.’

  Wydrin staggered back, deflecting a series of blows from one of the soldiers almost instinctively. Her arms were trembling with the effort now.

  ‘Why should I do anything you say?’

  ‘Just do it!’

  She must have seen something in his face then, a hint of what he intended to do, because instead of arguing further she put her daggers back in their sheaths and took hold of Sebastian, dragging him deeper into the water but taking care to keep his head above it. At the sight of the knight, his tunic soaked in blood, Frith felt his stomach turn over. Marshum and the ragged Culoss followed suit, looking up at Frith with wide dark eyes.

  ‘What have you done?’ asked Marshum.

  Frith shook his head, unable to explain. The warriors advanced up to the edge of the lake and stopped.

  ‘Come and fight,’ called one of the warriors at the front. She bared long pointed teeth at Frith, running a dark green tongue over them suggestively. ‘We like the taste of your blood, little warm things.’

  ‘Not bloody likely,’ shouted Wydrin back. ‘How about you behave like good little snakes and slither back underground?’

  The warrior laughed, and reached behind her to pull a slim golden bow from her back. Amongst the scaled golden armour the bows had been well camouflaged and, as Frith watched, the whole front line began to draw them, notching short, barbed arrows.

  ‘Well, we’re dead,’ said Wydrin.

  ‘No,’ said Frith. There was something growing within him, an extension of the light and power that had been with him since he’d been submerged under the lake. He felt it building, like a kettle of stew left on the stove too long, or water surging up from a well during flood season. He held out his hands in front of him and let the sensation overtake him. ‘They are.’

  There was a tremendous flash of light and a great wave of blue fire rolled out from the palms of his hands, surging towards the crowd of green warriors. Some of them dropped their bows, others turned to run, but found only hundreds of their sisters in their way. The fire was on them in an instant and the great cavern filled with screams as their flesh melted away from their bones, and their heads lit up like torches.

  Frith laughed. The palms of his hands were itching.

  ‘How did you do that?’ asked Wydrin, her voice shrill with astonishment, and Frith tried to tell her, but she could not hear it over the screaming of the warriors. Those still alive were now retreating for the far door, swords held over their heads. And there was another sound. A deep and ominous rumble from beneath their feet.

  ‘She is stirring,’ said Marshum. ‘She is not completely free yet, I do not know …’

  Frith knelt by Sebastian and took hold of the big knight’s face between his fingers. He was as white as paper and the skin around his eyes was bruised a deep purple, but he could feel the slither of life still there, a tiny hot thread amongst all that cold.

  ‘He’s still alive, but barely.’

  ‘Then we need to get out of here.’ Wydrin looked back towards the far doors, but the snake warriors were still crowded there, watching them with yellow eyes. They will gain their courage again soon enough, thought Frith, and then what? Now that the adrenaline was fading, his legs felt weak and his head was spinning. Could he keep up the fireballs long enough to fight to the surface? Long enough for Sebastian not to lose his grip on life on the way out? He thought not.

  Instead he searched the new knowledge he’d wrestled from the mages. It was strange, he did not feel as though he’d learned anything new, but he could remember things about the Citadel, things he hadn’t known before. And he thought there was a way out, after all.

  ‘I’m going to bring the ceiling down,’ he told them.

  ‘What?’ The portion of Wydrin’s face that was not covered in blood was milk white. ‘Did that little soak in the lake soften your brain?’

  ‘Just watch, and be ready to run.’

  The simmering ball of light and noise had already begun to grow again in his belly. Frith looked up at the ceiling and tried to see it clearly. The smoke from the fire and the height of the cavern made that difficult, but he knew it was there, and the mages knew its weaknesses. He reached out with his mind and he could feel the cracks up there, rents and fissures torn by the passage of time. For thousands of years the cavern had supported the weight of the Citadel, for thousands of years it had been strong, solid. And now it was time for it to come down.

  Light leapt up out of his hands before he even knew what he was doing, and this time it looked like forked lightning, brilliant and white. It travelled up to the distan
t ceiling and licked along the surface. For a few seconds they could all see it – black rock and weathered stalactites lit up in harsh blacks and whites – and then it was gone. Wydrin was letting fly a long series of colourful curses. Frith took a deep breath. He needed to concentrate. Let’s see what I can do.

  Heat streamed out of Frith’s fingers towards the ceiling. His heart raced inside his chest so fast that he could hardly breathe, and for a brief second he could feel the broken surface of the ceiling under his fingertips. The fissure was a dark, secret place; he could sense the emptiness behind the rock, the places where the stone was weak. All it took was a little pressure …

  Wydrin closed her eyes against the blinding light, but they were soon forced open again when a series of small explosions turned the lake into a frenzy of waves. There was an ear-splitting crash and suddenly it was as though they were being lifted towards the ceiling on a surge of water. It was only when the scaled warriors began to shriek that she realised it was the ceiling coming down towards them.

  She flung herself over Sebastian’s body, painfully aware that such last-minute heroics were pointless, and then it all went black.

  It was the sun that woke her. It was a gentle, warm hand on her head, and for a few moments she imagined she was back on the deck of the Haven’s Champion, sailing on a hot day. She even fancied she could taste the salt …

  Wydrin opened her eyes to blue sky and rubble. The Citadel, having stood for thousands of years, was now a mountain of broken masonry and shattered red brick. Pulling herself to her feet she saw that they had been thrown down onto the Sea-Glass Road. Frith was there, standing and looking down at his hands like he’d never seen them before, and Sebastian was lying a few feet away. Of the Culoss there was no sign. They were all covered in a thick layer of dust.

  ‘What did you do?’

  Frith looked up at her. The long twisting scar from his face was gone, and he was standing straight and true, but his hair was still bone-white.