by J. D. Oswald
Beyond lay the great hall where Iolwen and her party had first been taken. Close to Myfanwy’s house, it had been pressed into use as a command headquarters; the powerful magics surrounding it made escape easier should the palace be overrun. Usel had a scroll unrolled across the table and was peering at it, running excited fingers over the surface, but it was Anwen whom Iolwen was most pleased to see. Carrying Prince Iolo in a sling around her shoulder, she looked up at their arrival.
‘Your Highness. Iolwen. Who is this—?’ Anwen began, but Merriel cut her off.
‘We do not have much time. The Heol Anweledig cannot stay open for ever. It would be a disaster if these warrior priests were to find it. For those who do not know me, I am Merriel, daughter of Earith. I offer safe passage to Pallestre, escape from this war not of your making.’
Iolwen was only half-listening to Merriel’s words, more anxious to tend to her son. She had left him with Anwen that morning, gone out with Dafydd to aid with the defence of Nantgrafanglach, despite her husband’s repeated protests. Melyn’s men had arrived so suddenly, and spread with such speed and ferocity, she had feared she might never see her Prince Iolo again. Only once she had taken him in her arms and kissed his gurgling, smiling face did she finally understand what the dragon had said.
‘Escape?’
‘Pallestre is far from here, peaceful. My mother’s protection is more than adequate should trouble come looking for us.’
‘But what of the people of Candlehall? What of the servants of Nantgrafanglach?’
Merriel’s expression was hard to read. Iolwen had spent time with Myfanwy, but she was just one dragon among many, and she was not perhaps the most typical of her kind. Even so, it seemed that Merriel was surprised more than annoyed.
‘There is not time.’ She waved her hand and an opening appeared in the wall nearby. Warm air tumbled from it, bringing smells of spices, the sea and a deeper, more earthy musk.
‘I cannot leave my people. Not when they are being slaughtered like this.’
‘I know, Princess.’ Merriel nodded towards the opening and as if on cue a line of men began to march from it. ‘Pallestre has never needed much of an army, but what it has is at your disposal. I would still suggest you send those less able to defend themselves through the Heol Anweledig. They will be safe.’
Iolwen looked down at her infant son. He had no idea of the horrors unfolding throughout the palace, but that would not stop Melyn from killing him if he was found. She bent low to his tiny face, kissed him gently on the forehead and then reluctantly handed him back to Anwen. Dafydd put out his hand, and for a moment she thought he was going to argue for leaving, but he simply kissed his son as well.
Iolwen nodded. ‘Go, Anwen. Take Teryll with you. Usel, you should go too. You are a man of peace, not war, and Pallestre is full of wonders that should be documented.’ She scanned the rest of the group, saw Captain Venner and the last of the Tynhelyg palace guard who had ridden out with her and Dafydd so many months ago. Mercor Derridge was there with his grandson Beyn and a few of the men who had helped them at Candlehall too. What link to her they had that had made Merriel bring them all to this place she couldn’t begin to fathom, any more than how the dragon had done it.
‘Anyone who is sick of fighting should go with them,’ she said as the last of the Pallestre men stepped out of the Heol Anweledig. They formed up in ranks, two hundred and more young men, armed with steel and clothed in oiled leather. Would they be a match for the mad ferocity of the warrior priests and Inquisitor Melyn? Perhaps they would, for the Grym was not taking sides. And if Iolo was safe, she could hope that they might even win.
If she could only persuade the dragons of Nantgrafanglach to join the fight.
34
Dragons of most ancient legend were said to breathe fire. They were also said to fight each other without provocation and spend all their time either sleeping, killing things to eat, eating them or fornicating. Such is a very narrow view of our primitive ancestors, for while it is certain they breathed fire much like that which burns in the hearth, they could also produce the Fflam Gwir, the true flame, which is something altogether different.
There is no doubt that hundreds of thousands of years ago the wild beasts that would become dragons were less than perfect. A similar development can be seen in the men who serve us today. It is not long at all as measured in our own lifetimes since they were little better than the apes who still live in the distant forests of Eirawen and out beyond the Gwastadded Wag. They dwelt in caves, scavenged for food and caught fish only at the shoreline using sharpened sticks as spears. Now they have raised cities that while small to our eyes are yet marvels of engineering.
As dragons have grown in intellect and sophistication, so we have thrown off some of the more base behaviours of our primitive ancestors. Among these is the ability to breathe fire, and that is to be regretted. For that aspect of our natures was the first of the subtle arts. It was that innate ability that raised us above the common beasts, and to deny it now is to deny our true selves.
Corwen teul Maddau,
On the Application of the Subtle Arts
The battle for Nantgrafanglach was not going well. Prince Daffydd had been here only a short while, had met but few of the dragons who lived here and fewer still of the men. Even so he could tell from their panic that they were not fighters. Those few old soldiers who had fled here from Candlehall were doing their best to whip the men into shape, but they had little skill and fewer weapons. Even the men of Pallestre lacked the expertise of seasoned campaigners. The warrior priests on the other hand were a well oiled machine, each man wielding either a blade of steel or one of fire. Sometimes both. So far most of the casualties among their attackers had been down to the wild and fluctuating nature of the Grym rather than any planned defence.
‘We have to fall back, rally everyone around the central tower.’ Dafydd paused part way down a corridor, catching his breath as the rest of their party hurried past.
‘True. But we also need to persuade the rest of the dragons to help.’ Iolwen leaned against the wall, a short steel blade in one hand dripping with someone else’s blood. Dafydd knew she had studied fencing and spent hours being tutored by King Ballah in matters of warfare. It was another thing entirely to see her in action. Her face was smeared with sweat and gore, her hair slick with it, and she had not flinched from the fighting.
‘The rest of them? There are more?’ Dafydd looked back to the main corridor where they had fled an onslaught of warrior priests. He could no longer see much, but the body of one dragon lay where it had fallen, caught up in an explosion when a conjured blade of fire had proven too much for the warrior priest who had wielded it. Others had died before that one, cut down by the ant-like swarm of madmen.
‘These dragons are the ones Myfanwy persuaded to come back, to defend their ancestral home. They have no magic, or very little. Just hunters’ cunning and brute strength.’ Iolwen pushed hair from her eyes, leaving a smear of red across her forehead. ‘I had hoped the Council of Nantgrafanglach would join us. They could put an end to this fight.’
‘And why won’t they?’
‘I don’t know. Perhaps they are frightened. Perhaps they think that if they hide for a few hundred years we’ll all be dead and the problem will go away. Who can fathom these beasts? Not me, for sure.’
‘Perhaps I should speak to them.’ Dafydd knew as soon as he said the words that they were the wrong ones, simply by the look on Iolwen’s face. ‘If nothing else, let’s try and buy some more time for Myfanwy. She at least seems to have a plan.’
‘If not, then at least we can buy enough time for the rest of our people to flee to Pallestre.’ Iolwen’s glare softened, then changed into a frown. ‘Though if Melyn takes Nantgrafanglach then I don’t know how long we’ll be safe even half way around Gwlad.’
‘Your Highness. Ma’am. We need to keep moving, or they’ll surely catch up with us. Don’t know how much longer we can keep this
up.’
Dafydd turned to see Mercor Derridge, flanked by his grandson and a couple of the Pallestre men. They all looked exhausted, covered in grime and gore much like Iolwen.
‘Get the message out as far as you can. We need to pull everyone back to the central palace and the tower.’
‘We’re almost there, sire.’ Derridge pointed down the corridor. ‘That’s if I understand the locals right. Turn there’ll take us to the council chambers and the base of the tower. Other way’s back through the kitchen block and cut through the city to that big old hall where everyone’s trying to escape through one of them tunnels like.’
‘The great hall? You can get back there without going through the warrior priests?’
‘Aye, reckon so. Lad seemed right keen to head that way and I can’t say as I blame ’im.’
A shout split the air from the direction they had come. The corridor was not large enough for dragons, clearly built for the men who served them to pass along unnoticed. That was scant help when it was men who were attacking. Dafydd considered their motley band of soldiers; they really were no match for the warrior priests. Truly the only honourable course was to get as many out of the city as possible.
‘Take the men, head to the great hall and on to Pallestre through the Heol Anweledig,’ he said.
‘Sire? You mean leave? Flee?’
‘Exactly so. Iolwen and I will try to spur the council into action, but if that fails then we will join you in Eirawen.’
For a moment Dafydd thought the old soldier was going to argue, but his eyes darted briefly to his grandson before he stood up straight, saluted.
‘We’ll wait for you at this end as long as we can, sir. Ma’am.’ And without another word he was off, gathering the ragtag troop together and urging them on.
‘That was very noble,’ Iolwen said as she watched them go.
‘I can’t ask them to fight warrior priests, and we surely can’t ask them to die for this place if the dragons who live here won’t lift a finger.’
‘Some of the dragons. Many have died already. And Myfanwy needs time.’
‘Well let’s see if we can’t persuade the rest to put up more of a fight then. It’s their home, after all.’
They followed the troop at a distance, taking the opposite turning when they reached the end of the passage. It led them swiftly to a wide corridor, poorly illuminated by what little light could penetrate the gloomy storm outside and the thick glass set into the tall windows on either side. An opening on one side of the hall revealed a stone staircase climbing up in a gentle spiral. Opposite it and close to their smaller entrance, a pair of massive oak doors stood closed.
‘This is it. This is where Sir Conwil brought Usel and me.’ Iolwen walked over to the doors as Dafydd scanned the hall for signs of approaching warrior priests. After the screaming and noise of battle further out in the palace, the quiet was unnerving. A crack like a tree falling split the air. He whirled round to see the huge doors swing open, revealing another great room beyond. Dwarfed by them, Iolwen stepped inside, and Dafydd hurried to catch up with her as the doors began to close once more. They shut with a dull thud that echoed across the room and reverberated through the soles of his feet.
‘Princess Iolwen. I see you have returned. And who is this you have brought before us?’
Dafydd looked up at the faces of perhaps a hundred dragons seated on low benches behind empty tables like so many ancient schoolboys awaiting their master. He looked from elderly face to elderly face, seeing nothing that inspired him with confidence. He had seen more life in the dusty clerics who tended to his grandfather’s accounts.
‘Good day to you, members of the council. This is my husband, Prince Dafydd. We bring tidings of the battle outside and humbly beg your assistance. Nantgrafanglach is in danger of being overrun.’
A quiet murmur of Draigiaith fluttered around the room as the dragons conferred with each other. One of them, larger than most and with scales of a deep slate grey, finally stood.
‘Princess. Your Highness. It is as we said before. The arguments of men mean nothing to us. Your kind measure your lives in tens of years while we have known tens of centuries. We will wait, and in time things will return to the way they were.’
Dafydd sighed, letting his shoulders slump as he looked around the room in the rain hope of seeing Myfanwy. Of all the dragons he had met, she seemed the most attuned to life in the real world. She might have knocked some sense into them, but she was nowhere to be seen. Whatever her plan, she was carrying it out elsewhere.
‘It is too late for hiding.’ Iolwen spoke. ‘Melyn and his men are here already. They have not come for us, but for you. We have done our best to keep them out but we are losing that battle. Many have already died for you. It is time for the dragons of Nantgrafanglach to take up the fight.’
The leader of the council looked up sharply at that last word, as if the very concept pained him. Dafydd knew then that nothing he and Iolwen said would change their minds. Still, he opened his mouth ready to plead once more, but the door behind him boomed as if struck by a giant hand.
‘By the moon! Who dares disrupt a full meeting of the council?’ The slate-grey dragon moved out from behind his table and strode to the door with surprising swiftness. The other council members began to rise, and Dafydd felt a surge in the Grym as if they were readying themselves to repel an attack. For a fraction of a heartbeat he thought this might have persuaded them of the seriousness of the situation. Then he felt something else building in the air, something that took him back to the earliest days of his training.
Instinct kicked in and he grabbed Iolwen, pulling both of them to the floor as the huge oak doors exploded inwards. Chunks of timber and a million splinters like lethal darts flew across the room in all directions. Had it not been for the bulk of the great grey dragon standing in front of them, they would have been cut into tiny pieces. The dragon didn’t fare so well. As the dust and debris began to settle, so he toppled over, slumping to the floor like a dropped sack of flour.
The journey seemed to take for ever and yet no time at all. Benfro had never felt so tired, never known such pain. Even when Fflint had beaten him close to death it had not been the same. Then the agony was sharp, focused on each individual wound, each snapped bone. Now it was as if his body were simply falling apart. Only sustained concentration could keep him together. That and the need to keep walking.
They were a sombre group, all grieving the loss of Xando in their own ways. It seemed so senseless. He had only been with them by accident, had nothing to do with the warrior priests or Melyn and Magog’s madness. And yet he had been cut down almost thoughtlessly. Just another tree to be hacked away so that the path could be cleared.
The first night after the attack was miserable. They dared not light a fire, nor seek warmth from the twisting, whipping lines of the Grym. Benfro’s missing eye could see enough to warn them should any warrior priests come near, so he sat up most of the night keeping watch. In truth he did not think he would have been able to sleep even if he’d tried. Each breath brought a stab of pain to his side, his hearts thumping out of rhythm so that his head was light and his mundane vision blurred.
In the morning they had left as the first light began to mute the darkness, rising in silence and packing up their meagre camp before resuming their trek through snow-silent forest. Always uphill, always just close enough to the river to be sure they were going the right way.
It was late afternoon when Martha stopped them all with a sharp hiss and raised hand. Benfro had been half asleep, walking without thinking, without seeing anything but the white ground ahead of him. Snapping awake, his missing eye lit up the scene, showing a group of men not far ahead. He concentrated, looking for the signs he didn’t want to see and finding them aplenty.
‘Warrior priests,’ he said in a low whisper. ‘Lots of them.’
‘The wall is that way. They have the palace cordoned off from this side.’ Martha did not appear
to have moved, her hand still held up to stop them, but Benfro had seen her aethereal form sweep out through the trees in swift reconnaissance. It was brave, perhaps even foolhardy, given the circumstances and the skills of the men on guard.
‘There will be patrols moving around. We can’t stay here,’ Errol said.
‘How are we going to get into the palace? We can’t use the lines, and there’s no way we could all slip past these guards, even in the snow. Not with Benfro wounded like he is.’ Martha turned to face them, and for the first time since he had met the young woman Benfro saw doubt in her eyes.
‘There is a way.’ Benfro sniffed the cold air, sensing the river not far off. Wind whipped the tall trees overhead, occasionally dislodging chunks of snow down on them, but over the noise he could just about make out the roar of the waterfall.
‘The Anghofied?’ Errol asked.
‘If I can retrace my tracks, we can get back to the palace dungeons. They’re right beneath Gog’s tower.’
‘But what if you can’t? What if we get stuck in there and lose days, weeks?’ The pitch of Errol’s voice rose with his panic. He had not fared in the deep underground as well as Benfro.
‘I don’t see as we have much choice.’ Martha was the voice of unhappy reason. ‘We can’t walk the lines; there’s too much disturbance in the Grym. We can’t hope to slip past that many warrior priests either. If there’s another way, we must take it. Or give up.’
Benfro knew she had the right of it, even if the thought of that lifeless place filled him with almost as much dread as it clearly filled Errol. He nodded once, then led them down to the riverbank and the waterfall with its hidden cave.
Inside the cavern he retraced his own scent, following it back the way he had come. The journey through the underground world of the Anghofied was every bit as terrible as he imagined it would be, but at least with his three companions close by, Benfro wasn’t swamped by the same sense of hopelessness as before.