by Andy Roberts
Chapter
— 32 —
Brae awoke next morning to the sound of gulls. Gendrick hadn’t said a word after the fire: couldn’t trust himself to not kill him. He shifted along his bunk and put his face against the glass. At first he saw nothing other than black sea and grey skies. And then finally, there it was, a speck of white in the distance. He turned to tell Farrel and remembered that he couldn’t. He leaned on an elbow and looked down on the healer. ‘Enjoy your lie in,’ he said with a sad voice.
‘I saw what the Dragon Lord did to your people and village.’ Philly poured them both a cup of tea and added milk to hers only. The druid used a chunk of bread to chase the yellow of his egg around the otherwise empty plate. ‘And I know that you blame yourself.’
He laid the cutlery flat on his plate and then sat with his arms folded. ‘There is no-one else to blame. It was I who called upon the wind.’
‘But you weren’t to know that it would be the Foolish kind that answered.’
‘I never stopped to ask.’
Philly sipped her tea, added more milk and blew on it once more. ‘You were just a boy, younger in fact than Brae. That’s why you’re drawn to him, isn’t it?’
Tamulan ran his hands over his head, he’d cropped his hair ready for the forthcoming fight and its spiky ends sprang under his shifting fingers. ‘Not even my parents knew I was an Eiyl. From my very first thoughts I knew that I was different to all those around me. Most in the village possessed a single gift. Some, none at all. But only I was Alu, Ylay and Rofa. In public I conjured flame, but behind the privacy of closed doors I spoke with the wind.’
‘But why did you keep it a secret?’
‘Because an Eiyl must live a nomadic life—the very name is Gnognethi for traveller. I should have departed on my sixteenth birthday but I needed a community, lived for my family, and so hid my true identity from them—betrayed them even.’
‘You did it for love,’ Philly told him.
‘That’s not how the wind saw it.’ There was an anguish in his words. ‘It came one morning and spoke in a new voice. It presented me with riddles and set me challenges—had me find a book on a market stall and made me read it each and every night.’
‘The Book of Demons?’
The druid nodded. ‘Yle Llun Dlalu.’
‘We’re just drifting.’ Giblin stood beneath the naked masts and shook his head.
‘Then have them put their backs into it,’ Gendrick told him.
‘You can’t row something of this size with a few more than a dozen men.’
‘There were three-score crew when we started out,’ Snake said.
‘And the guardians have seen to it that we can’t man more than four oars.’ Giblin sat on a step and ran a hand across his dry mouth. ‘We’re done.’
‘No, no, no.’ Gendrick raised a finger and ran towards the stowed boats. ‘It’s true you can’t row this,’ he said poking the digit at the deck of the Raven. ‘But to take one of these ashore...’
‘And how then will we travel home?’ The captain wanted to know.
Gendrick gave him a broad smile and raised his arms to the sky in exaltation. ‘On a dragon-ship.’
‘What I don’t understand is how the Dragon Lord came to your village while he was still a prisoner in Ocantis?’
‘It was a brief reprieve,’ Tamulan said. 'You have to remember that the Foolish Wind and the Dragon Lord are two parts of the same demon. While Brae was able to summon the wind to the inn, the physical being remained locked in its chains and could journey no further than the Brindmere greystones.’
Philly sipped her tea. ‘But as an Eiyl, your gift was so powerful that it summoned the Dragon Lord to your village.’
The druid stared into his cup. ‘I was fishing in the nearby brook when he came. I heard their screams and saw the flames, and threw my pole in the water and ran as fast as my legs would take me. And there he was, stood at the roadside, brazen as can be.’ Tamulan watched as Griff made his way towards them. The innkeeper took a chair and sat down at the table.
‘Don’t mind me.’ Griff took a chunk of bread and dipped it in the druid’s tea. ‘You were just gettin’ to the best bit.’ Tamulan’s eyes were cold and sharp. ‘We’re up to the bit when you and that crossbow of yours save everyone.’ He shook the drips off another chunk of bread and tossed it into an open mouth.
‘Stop it.’ Philly put a hand on Griff’s knee in warning, but he moved his leg away and ignored her.
‘What I want to know is, how do you get to be so brave in every story that you tell, and yet in real life, your nuthin’ but a…downright coward?. Griff felt the legs of the chair collapse beneath him. He grabbed at the table a fraction too late and hit the hard boards with the base of his spine and the back of his head. Tamulan hadn’t moved: sat still and composed. Charts fluttered and papers see-sawed to the floor. The cabin windows rattled and the door swung open and then slammed shut again. Griff rubbed his head and coughed. ‘And you don’t fight like a man.’
‘I’ll have a pair of your strongest men row us ashore,’ Gendrick told Giblin. ‘You and what’s left of the crew will stay here and get ready for them.’ They’d seen a white speck of a sail on the horizon early-morning and by mid-day it had closed the distance between them by some margin—the druid making full use of his influence over the wind to gain every inch and minute that he could. ‘Use two shots of a fire-lance to give us good warning.’
Giblin shrugged and looked around him. ‘I’ll do my best with the few men I have left.’
Gendrick took a deep breath, he was close now. ‘The Dragon Lord will rise with the sun at tomorrow’s dawn.’
The Vanguard was little more than four or five hours sailing time from the Raven, and from that distance, its crew had no proper sight of what was happening aboard Captain Giblin’s vessel. The Raven turned slowly about its axis, its steel anchor clawing at the seabed, fighting against a force that pulled it further out into the Wandering Depths. The water around the ship bubbled like the contents of a soup-pot on an angry flame, the remains of the dead rising to its surface to taunt them with their fleshless faces.
‘What do we do?’ a sailor asked, his eyes wide and frightened.
Giblin put a hand on the young man’s shoulder. ‘We die with dignity,’ he said reaching for a grappling hook.
The shots came after two hours rowing, the shoreline another hour away at the very least. ‘You told him to fire it twice,’ Snake said. ‘It sounds like a battle going on back there.’
Gendrick put the spyglass to his eye. ‘Row faster,’ he told the sailors. Both men sat facing the Raven and neither of them had to be told twice.
‘Guardians will take them down, so they will.’ Brae sat and watched the minister. ‘I’m not goin’ to do it,’ he said. ‘No matter what you threaten me with—I won’t.’
Gendrick chewed at an annoying piece of skin on his bottom lip, the Book of Demons held in both hands. ‘Are you familiar with the Mist of Lost Souls?’
Brae nodded. ‘It’s where the dead lie in wait for a final resting place.’
‘Almost,’ Gendrick told him. ‘It’s where those touched by an early death, wander aimlessly.’
Brae shrugged. ‘Different slice of the same pie.’ He could tell that Gendrick didn’t understand him. ‘So what, same thing.’
The minister pointed a finger at him. ‘And that’s where you’re so very wrong. You can send the dead to their graves, only if you kill the one responsible for their deaths.’ He smiled and leaned closer. ‘But to kill the Dragon Lord, you must first release him.’
Brae shook his head. ‘You’re lying to me.’
‘You can see your family one more time, even say goodbye to them if you see fit.’ Gendrick nodded. ‘You do want your friends and family to rest in peace don’t you?’
It was almost dark when their boat slid to a halt in the sand and listed to one side. Above them, the green light danced in the darkening sky, the hillside al
ready bathed in its emerald hue. Gendrick was first to step ashore, the others following on his command. He grabbed Brae by the collar and pulled him close. ‘You make any attempt to slow us down and I’ll make sure your family wander for ever.’
A stone’s throw from the beach was an area of dense vegetation that lay like a blanket at the foot of a steep and tall hillside.
‘Which way?’ Snake could see no way around it.
Gendrick pointed straight ahead. ‘The stones should be on the other side of that hill.’
Chapter
— 33 —
‘It went under with neither trace nor warning,’ Elyon told them, ‘as though something snatched at it from beneath the surface.’
Tamulan stood as close to dead centre of the deck as he possibly could. ‘I don’t like water,’ he said when the captain beckoned him closer. Griff mumbled something but then went quiet again when Philly nudged him with a firm elbow.
‘Why didn’t you summon the Dragon Lord to the Brindmere greystones?’ Nolaan asked. ‘You could have dealt with him at any place of your own choosing?’
The druid kept his eyes off the sea, choosing instead to stare at the ship’s wheel as it played gently left and right of its own free will. ‘I did summon him once.’ Tamulan glanced at Philly and then returned his attention quickly to the wheel. ‘But all I was able to do was wound him.’
‘So the Dragon Lord can only be killed in Ocantis?’ Nolaan asked trying to develop a fuller understanding of their enemy.
‘But he carries an injury now,’ Philly said, ‘and that has to be something at least?’
‘Did you wrestle with him?’ Griff asked. ‘Spit fire at one another, or—’ A swift gust had him reach for a ratline to steady himself.
‘He has a scar beneath the left nipple.’ Tamulan held Griff’s eye. ‘And that’s where I’ll put my quarrel.’
Wind-riders danced in the green glow on the hill, showing them the way, insisting that they follow. Gendrick shoved at Brae and Snake lifted him by the scruff of the neck each time he slipped and fell. Thunder rumbled in the distance sky and the minister was sure that he could feel the rain spitting at them. The oarsmen had served their purpose and lay bloodied and face down in the surf. It was now just book and boy, Gendrick and Snake. The Dragon Lord would rise with the coming sun, though the night was still so dark that it seemed most unlikely that daylight would ever again show itself.
‘It’s dark,’ Griff told him. ‘There’s nuthin to be seen.’
‘I don’t need to see it to know that I’m on water.’ Tamulan sat with his head in his hands and tried to calm his breathing.
Griff rocked the boat side-to-side. ‘Gettin’ choppy, so it is.’
‘Stop that.’ Philly sat beside Nolaan, two pairs of tall oarsmen rowing them to shore with a haste befitting of the occassion. ‘I told you to stop it,’ she said when he refused to listen.
‘That wasn’t me.’ Unseen in the darkness above them, something malevolent and blacker than the night itself made its way towards land.
They waited on the circumference of the greystones, Brae hiding beneath the lintel of a trilithon, sheltering from the driving rain. They’d managed to cross the river only moments before the water running off the mountains had turned it into an uncrossable torrent, its surface now bubbling like the broth in a witch’s cauldron. Snake paced and watched the mist roll in off the distant hills, tinged as it was in places with the green of the dancing sky.
Gendrick wasn’t at all nervous. The moment had come—his moment. He sat on a lintel-stone of one of the shorter trilithons and took a deep toke on his bong. He inhaled the sour gases and felt himself rise from his body, leave and be taken by the wind. It whispered and posed questions that it then had him answer. It was testing him, all the while judging his allegiance to the cause. A splash of orange snagged his outstretched arm and took him higher, way above the circle of stones—so high that the towering structures were no longer identifiable in the impenetrable darkness. More streaks of orange corkscrewed in all directions, a hundred or more wind-riders come to celebrate his arrival. He followed—had no choice in the matter—spiralled towards the ground and deposited atop the altar-stone. He lay still for a moment and laughed while he caught his breath, then opened his eyes to find that he rested only an arm’s length away from the Dragon Lord.
Tamulan sensed a change in the air; charged as though it were preparing for a monumental, electrical storm. Griff had been true to his word and climbed with the determination of a man with both legs. But now came the rains, soaking everything in its path, turning the hillside into a river of sliding mud. They lay in it, each and every one of them soaked to the skin. They clawed at it, dragging themselves ever nearer its summit, following a mist that negotiated the impossible terrain with no such difficulty.
Gendrick held his breath and didn’t dare move as the Dragon Lord dragged his pointed fingernails across the rough surface of the altar-stone. Even if he’d stood on the structure, the creature would have measured half a man taller than he. The Dragon Lord said something that was harsh sounding and spoken in a tongue that was both ancient and complex. Gendrick waved a slow and careful hand at Snake. ‘Send me the boy.’
The poisoner pushed at him but Brae came back on himself and stayed on the outside of the circle, refusing to enter regardless of punishment. Snake drew his blade and put it to the boy’s neck only moments before he was snatched into the night by tentacles of bright orange silk. He called for Gendrick, pleaded for his life, and landed with a sickening thud on a vertical edge of one of the trilithons.
The Dragon Lord pulled a length of heavy chain through the ring on his belt, giving him enough leeway to manoeuvre around the altar-stone.
Brae stood shivering in the driving rain. The creature spoke again and this time to him only. It pointed a finger and wagged its hand as it rebuked in a tongue that no-one but it understood.
Gendrick slid from the stone and kept his back to it. ‘What’s he saying?’ The Dragon Lord whipped the chains in warning, knocking the minister to ground, the blow rendering him unconscious. Brae used the cover of a lintel stone to keep the book dry while he leafed through its first few pages, searching for the chapter that would have the Dragon Lord released.
They crested the hill, close to exhaustion, and saw the circle of greystones as the sky began to lighten. In the distance, the sun waited below the horizon-line, deliberating as to whether it should rise or snooze a little while longer. Ahead of them was the rearguard of the marching mist, the sky awash with flashes of bright orange. Griff descended on his buttocks, his foot reaching ahead of him to slow his descent, a shim of iron in his clenched fist. He shook it at the wind-riders as they swooped low for him, swearing at them as they corkscrewed away without doing him harm.
Philly stayed close to the druid, while Nolaan brought up the rear with his quartet of men. ‘You have to do something,’ she screeched as a trail of silk did its best to ensnare her.
‘Draw your swords,’ Nolaan ordered as a wind-rider hugged the land and travelled towards them at increasing speed. The nearest soldier cut at it harmlessly, eighteen inches of the finest, Soubatian steel rendered black and twisted out of shape. The creature came again and took the flailing soldier easily. It carried him to a point high above the expanse of fields and released him kicking and screaming.
Windsong arrived on the druid’s first call, swooping into the valley like a falcon chasing fast-moving prey. He whispered to it and had it deal with the wind-riders. He summoned the Angry Wind and pitched it against its foolish cousin. And he opened the land as easily as one might open a book. The sound was deafening: like two continents colliding. They clasped their hands over their ears and watched as the druid stepped onto a slab of granite that was as wide as a small field. He rode it like some might ride a wave, thundering down the hillside, headed for the circle of greystones.
The shadow moved from one trilithon to the next, Gendrick following, then retreating
each time it stopped to snap at him like a rabid dog. He let it increase the distance between them and then moved after it again. It reached Brae, took him by the shoulders and forced him to his knees in the wet earth. Brae shuddered under its cold touch, though it didn’t stop to caress his cheek—there wasn’t time—the druid was coming.
The first of the chainlinks broke apart with the sound of hammer on anvil. Brae bent his head to ground, read verse after verse, flinching as the metal tether pulled through its loop and fell to the ground. The Dragon Lord was free.
Gendrick didn’t know where to look next. The Dragon Lord was striding towards him, the druid coming fast at his rear. The shadow made a break for it and raced towards its master, snapping at his heels as it fought to attract his attention. The Dragon Lord caught it with both hands and threw it around his wide shoulders, wearing it like a cloak that was once again part of him.
Tamulan burst through the swollen river and brought his open arms together, stilling the earth, silencing the noise—only the wind and rain now daring to make a sound. He stepped from the slab and made his way towards the greystones on foot. The two winds rushed past, entwined in a twisted embrace, fighting to the death like a pair of snakes. Behind him, the mist rolled in off the hills and approached from every direction.
‘We’ll never cross it,’ Griff said standing on the bank of the fast flowing river.