by J. D. Oswald
‘And this storm? This … confusion of the Grym? Is that the Wolf too?’
Melyn considered the captain. Osgal had always been a good soldier, disciplined and with just enough innate magical ability to conjure a good blade of fire, but he lacked the subtlety to become more of an adept than that. In a way, such limited imagination was his protection when wielding the Grym. He was not drawn into it as easily as some. It was surprising to see him putting the pieces of this puzzle together, and perhaps a warning of just how precarious the situation was that he should even dare to bring up the subject.
‘It has something to do with him, yes. When—’ But Melyn was unable to finish. From nowhere he was seized with an impossible rage. His whole body tensed so hard he sprang up, sending his seat flying into the fire, scattering logs over the hearth and floor. Osgal leaped away in alarm, only the captain’s swift reactions saving him as the inquisitor lashed out with twin blades of fire. For some moments Melyn was a spectator in his own mind, his body feeling that it might explode. And then the understanding seeped into him as Magog’s thoughts merged with his own. He saw water running through a landscape of boulders and escarpments. Ancient trees towered on the riverbank, full of life. And in his hands, dragon’s hands, he held a shard of pure white bone, knew the smash of stone through his skull that had robbed him of life; felt the water filling his lungs as it dragged him down to the dark bed of a deep pool; sensed the crushing weight of passing years, centuries, millennia. He saw through the darkness a face and the body of a scrawny young Benfro, his tiny wings splayed out behind him as he reached closer, closer, and then touched.
Melyn slammed back into himself as if he were bursting through the surface of that pool. Somehow he had fallen to his knees, and now he sank on to all fours, drew in the deep, gasping breaths of a man who has almost drowned. His blades were extinguished, but all around him he could see the damage they had caused. A commotion outside, and several warrior priests burst in, gathering up the burning logs tumbled from the fireplace and stamping out the small fires that were even now threatening to set the room alight. With a wave of his hand, Melyn extinguished the flames. With another he pushed the men back out through the door. His mind was reeling at the information, the realization. But it was Magog’s mind, not his own. Or was there any difference any more?
‘Sire, are you ill?’
Of all the things Captain Osgal might have asked, this was perhaps the most stupid. And yet, instead of angering him, it made Melyn laugh. He rolled over, still sitting on the floor, hearts racing as he recovered from the shock. Hearts? Only one heart, surely?
‘I am a great many things, Captain, but ill is not one of them.’ He looked up at the white-faced Osgal, who was standing off to one side and trying hard not to shake. ‘I had a vision, you might say. A warning of something that cannot be ignored. The Wolf may be dead, but his followers are not, and they have such evil plans. We must track them down. Destroy them.’
‘I … I do not understand, sire? Track them down how? Are they not in the fortress across the chasm?’
Melyn paused a moment, squinting at Osgal through eyes that saw the world somehow differently. He went to rub them and noticed that the scales on his fingertips had grown down to cover his entire hands now, his nails turning black and narrowing to sharp points.
‘Some of them are, but some are gathering in the south. Take two dozen men. Go as fast as you can to Ystumtuen.’
‘Ystumtuen? But it is nothing but ruins.’
‘And it is on the direct route from Benfro’s village to here. He will pass through there soon, along with Errol and others they have corrupted. Find them, stop them. Kill them.’
Melyn pushed a compulsion behind his words to fire up the captain’s enthusiasm for the job, but he needn’t have bothered. As soon as he heard the name of the dragon, Osgal’s face hardened along with his resolve. He pulled himself up straight, smashed his fist against his chest in salute.
‘It will be done, sire,’ he said, turned and left. Out in the corridor, the inquisitor heard his shouted commands as Osgal strode swiftly away, a man with a mission and vengeance in his heart.
Melyn looked around the room. His blades had ruined much of the sparse furniture. He went through to his tiny bedchamber and searched through his travel pack until he found a mirror. It was a gift from Beulah, and not something he often had need to use. Now he held it up, surveying his face. The damage caused by Father Andro’s blade had healed swiftly, but like all his recent injuries the wound had turned to golden scales, puckering across his cheek. Only his eye had not responded to the Grym and the Shepherd’s healing powers. He had covered it with a black leather patch after the attack, and when he lifted it, the eyeball stared back at him white and shrivelled. The socket in which it sat was lined with the finest of scales, already growing over the skin of his eyelids and tugging back the edge of his nose. Soon they would cover the eye socket completely and the ruined eyeball would fall out. It was no matter; he could see fine without it.
‘And what am I become?’ he asked the darkness falling outside. There came no answer, but in the distance he heard a low, rumbling laugh.
31
Death comes to us all. Savage, swift and unexpected or drawn-out at the end of a long life well lived. After but a few short years or at the end of millennia. We come from the Grym, and to the Grym we must return. When all else is unpredictable, death is the only certainty.
But what is death? For the damselfly that lives but a day or the greatest of dragon mages whose years pass number, it is the same. An end, but also a beginning. For the Grym is life and we are all creatures of the Grym. Death is but a door that leads from one room to the next. We may step through naked and ignorant, like the basest of beasts, or we may take with us all the knowledge and experience of a long and studious life. In the end it is all the same, for the Grym cares nothing of learning and marks all as equal when the time of reckoning comes.
From the journals of Magog, Son of the Summer Moon
For the first couple of days Benfro couldn’t have been happier. They walked the forests of his childhood, heading ever north and east towards Ystumtuen, and even though the weather was cold for the season, the clouds thick and grey overhead, it didn’t dampen his mood. Finding Errol was worth so much more than the hope that the young man might lead him to Magog’s jewel, or learning that he had a piece of the long-dead mage’s cracked skull. The real joy was knowing that Errol was alive and well. Seeing Martha and Xando again, even though their parting had been for a shorter time, also lifted his spirits after the sadness of finding the village once more, of burying Father Gideon and finally relinquishing his mother’s jewel. That last was bittersweet, for though he had lost her, she was at least whole and among other dragons. He would have been content just to walk the woods with his companions for ever, never reach Nantgrafanglach at all, but with each passing league he found it ever harder to ignore the wound in his side.
It had always been there, the niggling sense that it wasn’t properly healed, that there might be a tiny splinter of wood still in his flesh and burrowing its way towards one of his hearts. Benfro had hoped that it was healing. Cerys had removed the worst of it, after all. But his treatment at the hands of Sir Nanteos and the journey of escape afterwards had taken their toll. He hadn’t concentrated on keeping the wound clean, sealing it up tight with his aura, and now the pain jabbed at him with every step.
‘You are not well, Benfro,’ Martha said as they made camp one evening. Their fire was in exactly the spot were he and Ynys Môn had built theirs not so many years before, the first time he had seen the ruined hunting lodge that lay just a few hours’ walk away.
‘I will heal. In time.’ He stared into the flames, remembering the tale his old friend had told him that night. The story of Gog and Magog and how they had fought over the love of Ammorgwm the Fair. Ynys Môn would have thought it just another tale, and one that Sir Frynwy told much better with his bardic training. But B
enfro knew the truth of it now. All dragons’ tales were rooted in reality, in things that had really happened.
‘Not if you don’t let it.’ Martha shifted herself closer, turning her head in that odd way of hers. Benfro could sense that she was looking at him in the aethereal as much as the mundane.
‘It looks inflamed,’ she said. ‘There’s infection under your scales, see?’
Benfro settled himself, trying to ignore the bickering conversation going on between Nellore and Xando across the fire. He let his missing eye take over, felt himself shift out of his own body and circle it for a better look. From this perspective what Martha said was clear. His wound was not badly infected, but if he did nothing about it that could very swiftly change. He could almost hear his mother’s words chiding him for being so foolish.
‘I will need to collect some fresh herbs. There is a poultice I can make that will suck out the badness and soothe the pain. I have most of what I need here, but some of the ingredients do not keep well.’ He pulled the leather bag he had taken from his mother’s cottage over his head, wincing slightly as he stretched the wound and sent a sharp jab of pain through his side. He tried not to let it show, covering up his discomfort by putting the bag down by the fire and going slowly through its contents. Martha watched in silence for a while. Beside her, never far away these days, Errol slept soundly. He seemed to spend a lot of time sleeping.
‘That ring. It is full of magic.’ Martha interrupted Benfro as he was laying out the ingredients. He stopped, held up his hand and looked at the silver band. He had all but forgotten it, but as he studied it more closely he realized that part of its power was to be overlooked. That might explain why no one had commented on it until now.
‘I found it in my mother’s cottage, hidden away in this bag. It seemed right to take it.’
Martha peered closer, and Benfro held his hand out for her to get a better look.
‘May I touch it?’ she asked.
‘If you think it’s safe. I can’t get it off, see.’ Benfro grasped the ring between two fingers and twisted it, fully expecting it to remain stuck like it had been back at the cottage. Instead it slid off easily. ‘Oh.’ He put it in his palm and then held it out for Martha. She peered closer, moved her hands over it as if caressing it only with her aura. A quick peek with his missing eye told Benfro that was exactly what she was doing. Finally she plucked it from his hand, running her fingers around the inside edge. For her it would have been too large even to wear as a bangle. It would have fitted comfortably around her neck.
‘There are words inscribed here. Ancient Draigiaith runes. I can’t really see them by the firelight, but perhaps …’ Martha raised the hand that wasn’t holding the ring and conjured a pure white ball of fire. She set it to hover in the air just above her hands as she studied the ring closer still.
‘It’s a naming ring,’ she said after a few minutes. ‘It traces your family tree back to …’ She paused a moment before handing the ring up to Benfro. ‘Well, back.’
‘Back to whom?’ Benfro asked the question even though deep down he already knew the answer.
‘Magog’s blood runs through your veins, Benfro. That is why he chose you.’
‘Chose me? Chose me for what?’
Martha opened her mouth to answer, but something distracted her. Benfro saw it at the same time, and his nose brought him the scent too. Swift as a striking snake, he slid backwards on to his feet, casting his aethereal sight around the trees beyond their camp. His hearts leaped in shock as he made out the shapes, hidden from his senses by twisted magic. Twenty, maybe more, they slid into sight like nightmares, and the greatest nightmare of them all was the man at their head.
Captain Osgal had healed from the Fflam Gwir Benfro had breathed upon him, and now he was more powerful than ever. He stepped into the light from their fire and conjured a blade of light that sputtered and flared with the fluctuating Grym all around them. His voice was all the more horrifying for its calmness, the terror he cast about him overwhelming.
‘Kill them,’ he hissed. ‘Kill them all.’
A shout woke him from a deep dreamless sleep, shocking him into chaos and confusion. Too close to the fire, Errol had to scramble back as Benfro leaped through the flames, snatching up the largest burning log and roaring at something in the darkness. Flaming branches and red-hot coals spilled out, setting fire to the dry grass of their campsite. Risking a glance sideways, he thought he saw Martha standing tall, the angriest expression on her face he had ever seen. Then she disappeared, and two warrior priests filled the space where she had been.
Rage as much as shock spurred him to action. He rose out of his bedroll, searching for the nearest weapon. Errol had never conjured a blade of fire, had no great desire to learn, but in that moment it seemed the simplest of things to let the Grym surge through him and into the two warrior priests. They had barely turned to face him when they were pillars of flame, consumed by the surging turmoil in the lines. He sensed something behind him, ducked as he turned, narrowly missing the arc of a blade as it singed the air above his head. The warrior priest who had swung was young, not much older than Clun, and Errol remembered him from the monastery at Emmass Fawr. There was no recognition in his eyes though, only hatred and a certain measure of madness. This was what the order did to the children it stole from their families.
‘You don’t have to fight me,’ he said, dodging a second swipe of the blade. ‘I’m not your enemy. Melyn is the one you should fear.’
For a moment Errol thought he might have got through to the lad. Tanner, that was his name. There was the slightest flicker of doubt across his face, a moment’s hesitation. It might well have been that which did for him, although Errol could see how twisted and unpredictable the lines were, how unstable the Grym. It exploded through the young man, burning him up from the inside so swiftly he didn’t even have time to scream. He dropped to his knees, then toppled sideways into the fire, the short sword he had been carrying in his other hand falling to the ground. Errol scooped it up even though he had only the vaguest idea of how to use it. He turned just as another warrior priest appeared in front of him, lunging with a knife. His thoughts still sluggish from sleep, Errol barely moved, but the warrior priest’s strike seemed to go off course, the point of his blade slashing at the air just to Errol’s side.
‘Move, Errol!’ The shout had him turning, and he saw a brief flash of what might have been Martha, flitting through the darkness. More warrior priests were emerging from the trees now, conjuring blades of fire that sputtered and flared as if they were the work of novitiates, not highly trained soldiers.
A sharp pain lanced through his side. Errol let out a shriek, shying instinctively away. The warrior priest with the knife had finally found his mark, ripping through the fabric of Errol’s tunic and cutting the skin over his ribs. The shock gave him focus, forcing the last of the befuddlement from his mind. He leaped to one side, bringing his sword up to parry the next blow even as he noted that Nellore and Xando were surrounded by yet more warrior priests.
‘No!’ His shout was more panic than intention. Errol had never fought before, never had to defend himself from such overwhelming odds. He lashed out with his sword, catching a lucky edge on his opponent’s blade and whipping it from the warrior priest’s hand. A step forward brought him in close to the man, and he could see the surprise in his eyes. Errol knew then that he would have to kill him. That was the way fights went. He also knew that he couldn’t, not with a blade of steel any more than a blade of fire. He couldn’t take this man’s essence and add it to the Grym. It sickened him that he had killed two already without truly knowing how he had done it.
‘No.’ The word was less of a shout this time, and he pushed the warrior priest away as he said it. A moment of confusion, then the man conjured a short blade of fire and advanced again. Errol was forced backwards, tripping over the charred leg of young Tanner, poking out of the fire. He landed heavily and dropped his stolen sword.
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‘The inquisitor will reward me well for your head, traitor.’ The warrior priest raised his blade of fire high. Errol could do nothing but hold up one arm to try and ward off a blow that would strike right through him. Then something barrelled into the warrior priest, knocking him sideways off his feet. The man kept control of his blade, twisting as he fell and grabbing hold of his attacker. Nellore struggled, beating at him with her fists, but she was small and light where he was tall and strong. The warrior priest held her in a firm grip as he whipped his blade of fire swiftly round.
An empty fist swung past her head, the blade disappearing the moment before it would have parted Nellore’s head from her shoulders. Errol stared in surprise at his hand clenched loosely around a ball of purest white energy. Nellore wriggled free of the man’s grasp, rolling away from him at the same time as Errol began to feel the heat searing his skin. He flicked his hand towards the warrior priest, not really sure of what he intended to happen. The ball of fire leapt from his palm like lightning and struck the man squarely in the chest. He let out a grunt of surprise and dropped down dead. Steam spiralled up from his face and clothes.
‘How?’ Errol and Nellore spoke at the same time, but before either of them could be answered, a terrible scream echoed through the clearing. Pale blue fire lit up the night, and Errol felt a pull on the Grym as something drew deep on its energy from all around. He rushed to Nellore, helping her up before both of them sprinted for the trees. There were bodies everywhere, all dressed in the robes of warrior priests. Some were clearly dead, their skin blackened, clothes smoking as they had lost control of their conjured weapons. More were unconscious, as if someone had reached into their heads and turned off their thoughts. Only one still stood, and Errol knew him all too well.