by J. D. Oswald
‘Osgal.’
The captain was dancing this way and that, his blade of fire still steady. The trees gave him the advantage as he fought Benfro. So big was the dragon now he could not easily manoeuvre among the trunks. Judging by the way he moved and the blood slicking his scales he was in trouble.
‘Osgal!’ Errol shouted the name this time, catching the captain’s attention just as he swung around a thin tree, pivoting and sweeping his blade past Benfro’s wing as he went. The dragon howled with pain, let rip with another gout of blue flame. It billowed towards the captain but petered out before it could reach him.
‘Well, if it isn’t young Errol Ramsbottom.’ Captain Osgal grinned like a lunatic, then turned his back on Errol and swung his blade once more at Benfro. Trapped by the trees, it was all the dragon could do to avoid being skewered by the fiery blade. Errol tried to focus on the Grym, to reach out like he had before, but Osgal was too contained, his mental barriers too well honed.
‘We have to help him.’ Nellore went to the nearest unconscious warrior priest and wrested his sword from him. A thick metal blade as long as her leg, she could barely lift the thing, but still she dragged it towards the captain, intent on getting herself killed. Errol ran to her side, grabbed her by the shoulder and took the blade from her.
‘You can’t hope to fight him.’
‘And what about you?’
Errol shook his head and hefted the sword. Osgal and Benfro had moved deeper into the forest now, and he could see that the captain’s plan had always been to force the dragon into the trees. Any further and he wouldn’t be able to move at all. If he ran out of fire, he’d be completely at the captain’s mercy. And Errol knew the captain had none.
‘Face me, Osgal.’ Errol shouted the words, knowing they were hopeless.
The captain barely slowed in his attack, turning only briefly to address him. ‘Patience, Ramsbottom. I’ll get to you when I’m done with your friend.’
Errol tried to recapture the feeling when he had taken the blade of fire from the warrior priest. Holding one hand in front of him, he imagined the power of the Grym concentrating there, trapped in a protective envelope of his aura. It was hard to hold on to, the lines were erratic and the Grym itself slippery, but a tiny ball of pure white energy began to form, began to grow.
‘I said face me!’ He shouted as loud as he could this time, putting all his rage and frustration into the words. As Osgal turned, Errol flung the ball of energy at the captain. It spun lazily through the trees, almost hypnotic, and for a moment Errol thought it would explode in the captain’s face, engulf him in flame and consume him utterly. Instead Osgal merely flicked his free hand, and the ball of Grym veered away from him, smashing into a tree trunk and dissipating to nothing almost instantly.
‘Is that the best you can do?’ His voice was a sneer that went right back to their first meeting outside the village hall at Pwllpeiran on the day Errol’s mother had married Clun’s father. Osgal had been there then, pinning him to the ground as Melyn poured thick red wine down his throat the better to force his way into Errol’s mind and rewrite his memories.
‘It’s enough,’ Errol said and dropped the sword. Osgal looked momentarily confused, then remembered what he had been doing. He turned back to face Benfro just as the dragon drew himself up to his full height. There was nothing to protect the captain as the pale blue Fflam Gwir engulfed him. He screamed once, the noise cut short as the fire surged in through his open mouth and down into his lungs. His blade of fire sputtered and died, its power surging back into the Grym along with his life force as he slowly sank to his knees and then toppled forward. By the time his head hit the ground it was no more than ash, billowing away into the night.
A kind of silence fell on the woods. Errol could hear only the crackling of flames and the hammering of his heart in his chest. It had all happened so quickly, waking him so swiftly he hadn’t been able to think. Now as he caught his breath he began to see the destruction all around. Still mounds by the fire were the dead or unconscious forms of warrior priests. So many of them, he wondered if they hadn’t perhaps strayed into Melyn’s army. Except that would have meant the inquisitor himself, not Captain Osgal in charge.
Nellore was on her knees by the fire, and at first he thought she was retching, sick from the carnage. Then Errol noticed the figure lying beside her. He hurried over, all else forgotten as he stooped to see the prone form of the boy, Xando. His face was white, eyes closed as if he were sleeping, but his dark woollen cloak hung around him damply, and when Errol touched it his fingers came away red. He already knew that the boy was dead, run through by a cowardly sword.
‘Why’d they do that? He weren’t hurting nobody?’ Nellore looked up at him with red-rimmed eyes, tears running down her cheeks. Something moved in the darkness behind her, and he sprang to his feet, ready to fight once more, this time to kill. With a whispering of the Grym, Martha stepped out of nowhere, dishevelled, her face dirty, eyes wide. She glanced around the clearing, eyes darting from tree to tree as if each was a hidden warrior priest waiting to leap out and slay them all. Then she looked down, saw the boy and let out a low, keening wail.
‘No. No. This is not right.’ She pushed past Nellore, knelt and lifted Xando’s head into her lap. Errol felt a moment’s irrational jealousy before reminding himself that for all the months she had been Gog’s captive, trapped in the golden cage or merely held at the top of the great tower, this boy had been Martha’s only companion. None of the others knew him well at all.
He reached out, laid a gently shaking hand on Martha’s shoulder. She flinched slightly at his touch, then relaxed. ‘We will bury him properly,’ she said. ‘Somewhere he can become one with the Grym.’
Errol was about to agree, but a noise distracted him. How could he have forgotten so swiftly? He whirled to see Benfro still standing where he had breathed fire and put an end once and for all to Osgal, staring at the spot where the captain had died. The last remnants of blue flame flickered and danced in the undergrowth, their light playing across the dragon’s scales as he leaned forward, one hand on the trunk of the nearest tree. Slowly he raised his head, turned and faced Errol. Then, with all the grace of a landslide, his legs folded under him and he crashed to the ground.
32
The knowledge and experience of a lifetime are stored in a dragon’s jewels, deep within his living brain. A newly hatched kitling will have no memories and so no jewels. A mage of many millennia will not necessarily be possessed of so many as to leave no room in his skull for anything else, but those jewels he has grown will be dark and dense with the learning of his lifetime.
But what if a dragon experiences such horrors he cannot bear to remember them? What if he is driven mad by some terrible calamity? In such situations it is possible to remove one or more of his jewels, and with them the source of his madness.
This is not a procedure that should be undertaken by any but the most skilled of mages, and with the assistance of a healer of unsurpassed ability. Not only must the correct jewel be identified and carefully removed using the Llinellau, but that jewel must be reckoned the instant it is removed. An unreckoned jewel is a dangerous thing. It will latch on to any life it can, leach experience and memory and seek to reassert itself through that contact.
Performed correctly, the procedure can bring much-needed relief to the sufferer, although with one jewel removed the patient will never be quite the same. It is a procedure that can only be recommended when all other possible remedies have been tried, for to fail in it may leave not one dragon mad but two.
From the journals of Myfanwy the Bold
Melyn stood at the tree line and stared out across a narrow strip of clear ground at the imposing wall that towered into the storm-black sky. Snow came in flurries, heavy at times before clearing completely for just long enough to make an observer think it had finished. The cold seeped through his old bones and he longed to tap into the Grym, feel its warmth ease his tired muscles.
He could see it all around him, the lines thick and full. But they pulsed erratically, one moment pushing energy into the unwary, the next sucking it out so fast he had seen men simply fall dead. Marching through the forest, they had witnessed trees spontaneously explode into flame, the unlucky recipients of too much power. Others sickened and died, their leaves tumbling on to the snow-covered ground. Only those warrior priests who had mastered the art of Frecknock’s hiding spell had any chance of protecting themselves from the unpredictable forces of nature as Gwlad writhed and bucked under the release of Gog and Magog’s insane magic. Cut off from the power they had used all their lives, they were cold and miserable.
‘Form up the men. We’re going in.’ Melyn gave his orders in a quiet voice, even though he knew they were not likely to be overheard. The ever-present howl of the wind made it unlikely even a shouted command would carry far. His warrior priests were nervous; a lesser army would have turned and fled by now. Better to keep things calm until there was actual fighting to do.
As the order passed down the line and the men began to form up, Melyn strode out from the trees, crossed the narrow strip of snow-covered ground and approached the wall. At least on this side the ground was scoured by the wind, otherwise the drifts would have made it all but impossible to pass. How quick and easy it would be to traverse the park on the other side was another matter entirely.
Pulling off his glove, the inquisitor reached up and touched the cold stone. The tiny scales that covered his fingers and palm were not affected by the cold, but they could feel magic flowing through the wall, protecting it, sending warnings of their approach to anyone who might be listening. It was unlikely that alarm would be heard, unlikely even the most skilled of dragon mages would be doing anything other than cutting themselves off from the Grym in much the same way as Melyn’s warrior priests. It was too wild, too dangerous, especially over distance. Otherwise he might have left these men in Emmass Fawr and walked the lines here all by himself. It wasn’t as if the dragons within posed much of a threat to him.
He had studied the wall from the woods, but even so it took Melyn a while to find what he was looking for. This was ancient magic, after all, the subtlest of arts practised by his hated brother. He shook his head to try and rid himself of Magog’s influence, but it was becoming increasingly difficult to tell where he ended and the dead dragon began. There was knowledge to be had in that connection, power too, and Melyn had always coveted both.
‘Reveal yourself.’ He spoke under his breath as the thinnest of cracks became apparent to his aethereal sight. All the subtle arts stemmed from the Grym, so it was no easy task to take that line and ease it open. He had to ride the waves coursing through the lines, anticipate when to let it flow through him and when to withdraw completely. Slowly the crack widened, the spell crumbling around the edges until a stout wooden door wide enough to let a dozen men enter at a time stood in front of him. Set high, an iron handle protruded from the wood, a lever that would lift the latch inside and grant entry were it not for the magical locks that held it firm to all but a dragon’s touch. Reaching up as far as he could, Melyn wrapped his scaled hand around the ice-cold iron, felt the rush as a wave of Grym spilled over him. He tapped as much of it for warmth as he dared, letting his senses ride it a short distance so that he could predict when it would become too powerful even for him. Then, with a smooth motion the latch dropped and the door swung slightly inwards.
Without his command, a troop of warrior priests appeared beside Melyn, set their hands to the wood and pushed. It moved slowly at first, and then picked up momentum, revealing a dark tunnel that echoed to the roar of the storm.
‘Bring me light.’ Melyn waited impatiently until a warrior priest arrived, carrying a flaming torch. How much more complicated life was without the Grym to aid them at every turn. ‘Follow me, men. Weapons ready, though I don’t expect much of a reception committee.’
He set off down the tunnel, sniffing the air for any suggestion others had been this way. If they had it was many months, maybe many years ago. Nothing lived in here save for the spiders whose webs dangled from the ceiling high overhead.
It took a surprisingly long time to reach the far end of the tunnel and another ancient door that yielded only to Melyn’s dragon-scaled touch. This one swung inwards to reveal a bank of snow piled up higher than a man, a thin band of grey light at the top revealing that the storm had returned with a vengeance. Melyn surveyed the lines and the aethereal, riding the waves of Grym which seemed to be a little gentler here than outside the walls. Sensing a lull, he risked drawing the power into himself, then conjured a ball of white-hot flame and sent it into the snow. Steam billowed down the tunnel, engulfing the nearest warrior priests, who cursed at the sudden wetness that added to their already chilled misery. He cared nothing for their hardship; it was not yet cold enough to kill them. His flame billowed out fifty paces and more before fizzling to nothing, leaving a wide trail of damp grass that steamed for a moment before turning crisp with frost. He stepped out into his brother’s palace, breathing deep of the freezing air as his army emerged from the tunnel in their hundreds. They fanned out into the snow, heading for the distant pinprick lights that marked the outermost buildings. Warmed by the power that surged through him now, linked to Magog by something stronger even than the Grym, Melyn raised his arms high, gazing at the vast tower that speared up into the clouds, the centre of this storm that threatened to engulf the whole of Gwlad. He would bring it crashing down, put an end to it. To all of it.
‘Go, my warrior priests. Seek out the dragons inside and the traitorous people who serve them. Kill them all. Let no one live. I will wash this place clean with their blood and claim it for my own.’
Screaming woke him from a deep and dreamless sleep. Dafydd sat upright too swiftly, his head taking a while to catch up with the motion. He didn’t know where he was, for a moment couldn’t even see. Then the light grew brighter as if curtains had been pulled back from a window, letting the day inside.
Had he not spent time in Pallestre, he would have marvelled at the massive scale of the room. It made him feel like a tiny child, so far was the distance between the walls, so high the intricately corniced ceiling overhead. He lay in a bed big enough for an entire family, his feet barely reaching a quarter of the way down the mattress. Dull white light spread over furniture that was at once familiar and odd. Chairs with no backs and far too big for any man to sit in; a wardrobe that would have made a comfortable home for some of Tynhelyg’s poorer citizens. The walls were hung with tapestries showing scenes of deep forest, greens and browns shot through with the occasional flash of colour that was a particularly fine bird or some exotic beast. And there, where he had always been expecting them, were the dragons, wheeling above the canopy in a sky of azure blue.
‘You’re awake. Good. I was beginning to think you were too far gone. The cold is unseasonal, and it is unwise to venture into the mountains without a shirt on, even in the height of summer.’
Dafydd glanced around, trying to locate the source of the voice. Then an elderly dragon emerged from the shadows by the window. She was small compared to the beasts at Candlehall, but still large enough to make more sense of the room. And she was old, older by far than Merriel and possibly as old as Earith herself. She stooped, her wings hanging from her sides like moth-eaten curtains. Her face was more scarred, leathery skin than scale, and her eyes were white with cataracts though they pierced him with a glare that made him feel naked.
‘What’s going on?’ He struggled with the heavy bedding, pulling himself out from underneath blankets as thick as his fist. The drop to the floor was further than he expected and he landed heavily on weak legs. ‘Where’s Iolwen?’
‘The princess is directing her troops. Well, I say troops, but they’re not trained soldiers. Still, there is so much turmoil in the Grym they’re almost a match for the men outside. If only I could say the same for my own kind, but we are not skilled in the ways of violence.’
>
Dafydd limped across the room to the window, only half realizing that he was naked and cold. He began to reach for the lines for warmth, but something stopped him.
‘I would suggest not.’ The dragon held out her arm towards him. ‘This will pass in time, but until it does you are best not using any magic.’
He remembered then the conversation with Merriel at the Neuadd and how the storm that was spreading across the whole of Gwlad was so much more than wind and snow. Through the window he could see plenty of that, swirling across a wide area of parkland that reached out like a white carpet all the way to the distant wall. Dafydd opened his mouth to speak, then his thoughts caught up with him. ‘I am sorry. This must be your house, and you have offered me your hospitality. I am Dafydd of the House of Ballah, and I am in your debt.’
The dragon sniffed. ‘I know well who you are, Prince Dafydd. I am Myfanwy, and you had best put on some clothes before your wife arrives. I dare say she has seen you naked, but the rest of her retinue might be a bit alarmed.’ She nodded towards a large chest that sat at the end of the bed. ‘You’ll find clothes in there that will serve you better than the thin trews you were wearing when you arrived. If I didn’t know better I’d have said you’d been sunning yourself in Eirawen, not trekking through the forest snow.’
Dafydd opened the chest, releasing a brief waft of some unpleasant odour that quickly dissipated as he delved inside. There were clothes aplenty, and soon enough he was dressed more appropriately for the climate. He located the source of the smell too, a small scrap of dirty cloth bunched up in one corner of the chest. He reached in and pulled it out, feeling something heavy wrapped within it.
‘Ah yes, that. In all the excitement I had forgotten about that.’ Myfanwy was right behind him as Dafydd straightened, and something about her words suggested she was not the kind of dragon who ever forgot about anything. ‘May I?’ She held out a gnarled hand, palm up, and as Dafydd transferred the cloth to it he felt the hardness inside, something wrapped up. Myfanwy gently teased the corners away with a blunted talon to reveal a small red jewel, ugly and uncut.