by J. D. Oswald
Errol fared the worst, shivering as if possessed of a terrible fever and muttering constantly to himself. After a while Martha suggested they all hold hands, something that was increasingly necessary given the near-total darkness and utter lack of Grym. The touch of her hand in his was a welcome contact, and from that point on they made better progress. When they reached the dimly lit tunnel mouth that led up to the cells, it was as if a huge weight had been lifted from his shoulders.
Benfro slumped against the stone wall as first Martha, then Errol and finally Nellore scrambled past him. All three hurried further up the passage before stopping, as if the tunnels and caverns they had traversed had been populated with the most terrible horrors imaginable. Perhaps for them they had.
‘Are we there? Are we in Gog’s palace?’ Nellore asked, her eyes so wide Benfro could see the whites all around them. He looked up at the ceiling, then down at the floor of the passage. Both were worked stone, neatly chiselled and smooth. Many feet had come this way over centuries, maybe millennia, each one wearing away at the rock until it shone.
‘This is the way I came when I escaped. Uphill will take us past the dungeons. I just hope we don’t meet anyone unfriendly on the way.’
He pushed himself upright, wincing as the pain sliced through his side and set his hearts thumpity-thumping out of time. His legs were like stone, heavy to move. His tail dragged behind him like a curse. Every step was a mile, and he couldn’t help being reminded of his time in Magog’s retreat at the top of Mount Arnahi. Only there it had been the thin air that had weakened him. He had no such excuse this time.
They moved cautiously up the passage, past the burned-out remains of the cell in which he had been locked. Benfro strained his senses, his missing eye showing him a blurry, incomplete aethereal view. Had he the strength he would have pushed further with his magical sight, but it was hard enough just breathing. No sounds reached his ears but the rustle of his companions’ clothes and the quiet crackle of the torches that hung from the walls. The passage opened on to the hall where the dungeon guards had been stationed when Benfro had first been led down to his cell. Now it was empty, the fireplace cold. Benfro leaned heavily on the old oak table that filled the centre of the room. The plates of half-eaten food and goblets still brimming with wine suggested somebody’s meal had been interrupted. Had they gone off in search of him after his escape and not returned? It seemed unlikely.
‘This way leads up to the palace.’ He pointed to the wide stairs, his hearts sinking at the thought of climbing them. Even the prospect of walking across the hall filled him with dread. He just wanted to lie down and sleep. ‘We must try and find Myfanwy. Or Cerys.’
By the time they reached the top, Benfro’s mundane sight had almost completely gone. It was too much effort to keep his eye focused, or indeed open. He walked like a dragon asleep, only his missing eye painting the scene in the aethereal. That was perhaps why he failed to notice anything out of place until he finally stopped.
The main hall was vast. On the far side doors opened on to the parkland that stretched away to the wall. Stairs climbed to a series of landings. Higher still, a great glass dome would have filtered light in from above, were it not darkened by night and the weight of snow pressing down upon it. At this level the hall had contained little furniture, just a few tables in the middle, some heavy chests and sideboards around the walls. That much Benfro remembered from when he was marched through it on his way to the dungeons.
Now it was carnage.
There was a moment’s stunned silence, then panic galvanized the remaining dragons into action. Mostly this involved falling backwards over their seats, tipping the tables on end and colliding with each other as they tried to escape. Keeping his head low, Dafydd gripped Iolwen’s hand and together they inched back, using the bulk of the dead dragon as cover until they could tuck in behind half of a shattered table.
‘Melyn.’ Iolwen’s voice was a hiss, no question in the word. Dafydd risked a peek, saw a lone human figure standing in the doorway. A crimson blade of fire sprang from one fist and with the other he directed warrior priests into the room.
‘We have to find a way out. We can’t be captured. He’ll kill us both.’
Dafydd scanned what little of the room he could see from where they hid. There were large windows, but the sills stood higher than a man’s head, the glass in them thick and heavy. He doubted he could break it with a hammer, and he had no weapon other than his unreliable magic.
‘There. The fireplace.’ Iolwen tugged at his sleeve, pointing to the back wall opposite the exploded door. The fire was lit, flames leaping up the chimney. Dafydd couldn’t think what she could mean, but then he saw it. Like everything else in the palace, the fireplace was built to the scale of dragons, but it was also designed to be cleaned by men. Neat stone steps, presumably to aid with sweeping the chimney, climbed the inside, disappearing past the mantelpiece.
‘We’ll get cooked in there.’
‘Better than the alternative.’ Iolwen crouched low, weaving her way across the room until she was at the fireplace. Dafydd took one last look round the edge of the upturned table. The inquisitor was still in the doorway, a seemingly endless line of warrior priests jogging into the hall from behind him, fanning out into the chaos as they conjured blades of fire to attack the trapped dragons of the council. Some didn’t even bother with magic, but harried the beasts with steel, raising sparks where they clattered off scales. The noise was horrendous, screaming and wailing that was as much in his head as his ears. It mirrored the chaos of the Grym, surging and fading with no discernible rhythm.
Motion in the corner of his eye, and Dafydd rolled out of the way as a dragon came stumbling towards him. Pursued by a warrior priest brandishing a sputtering blade of fire and oblivious to anything but his quarry, the creature fell over the table. Sticking his leg out, Dafydd tripped the man, reaching for anything that he might use as a weapon. He need not have worried. Momentarily losing his concentration, the warrior priest lit up with fire as the power concentrated in his blade consumed him. Then the flames began to lick at the wooden table, leaping between the splinters of the door that lay all over the floor, heading straight for Dafydd as if they could sense the spark of life within him and wanted to join it.
Dafydd scrambled backwards, knocked into another fleeing dragon and spun round, coming to his feet in a run that brought him to the fireplace just as the Grym from the warrior priest’s blade caught the dragon and engulfed it.
‘Up.’ Iolwen grabbed at his arm as he gazed back at the scene, transfixed. He had never seen anything like it: the power of Gwlad leaping from dragon to dragon, burning them with a ferocity that made the storm outside seem mild in comparison. The warrior priests had mostly extinguished their own blades, content to let their leader do all the work. For that was who was controlling the fire. Standing in the middle of it all, arms outstretched, Inquisitor Melyn laughed like a mad child.
‘Up!’ Iolwen shouted over the din, dragging Dafydd back past the real flames crackling over the logs and towards the steps cut in the fireplace. He stumbled, almost fell into the fire and felt the heat of it burn away the hairs on the back of his hand. Iolwen’s grip tightened, pulling him back, and he got his feet under him.
The air cooled a little as he followed Iolwen up and away from the flames, but it was still uncomfortably hot. The smoke made it hard to breathe, tears blurring his vision until he could barely see. The steps opened on to a wide ledge that ran around the inside of the chimney, and on the far side of it they found a deeper alcove that took them away from the scalding air and dancing embers. The two of them slumped down with their backs pressed against the rock, faces lit by the glow of the fire below.
‘Do you think anyone saw us?’ Iolwen asked.
Dafydd had been thinking the same thing. ‘If they did, then we’re done for.’ He reached around and smacked his hand against the stone. ‘No way out here.’ But when he pulled his hand away, he felt the ligh
test of cool draughts caress his fingertips. He pressed them against the stone again, running them over the soot until he felt a tiny crack. It rose, dead straight, then formed an arch before coming back down to the floor.
‘There’s a doorway here. Or something like it.’
Down below the screams of the dragons had fallen almost to silence. The Council of Nantgrafanglach had not lasted long; if he and Iolwen had been spotted the warrior priests would be after them soon enough. Dafydd rubbed away at the wall around the crack, feeling for anything that might be a lever. He tried to get his fingernails in to prise the door open, but it was solid.
‘Here. You need to do this.’ Iolwen stood up, lifted a hand and placed it firmly on a spot that in the half-light looked no different to any other. With a heavy click, the crack widened and fresh air whistled through the gap. ‘Now you can push it.’
Dafydd set his shoulder to the stone and heaved. It moved slowly at first, no doubt stuck from ages of neglect. Then the door swung open, not stone but heavy iron caked with soot. The room beyond was as black as the night, but it was cool and a fresh blew through it. At the very least it was away from the fire, the warrior priests and Inquisitor Melyn. He ducked low through the arch, sliding his foot forward lest there be an unexpected drop. When he was sure the floor was safe, he put out his hand and guided Iolwen through.
No sooner had she stepped into the dark room than the door began to swing back of its own accord. Dafydd tried to stop it, hoping the light from the fireplace would let him see at least enough to find a way out, but it was like trying to stop a tree from falling. The iron slipped from his grasp and with a solid clunk the door slammed shut.
The reason Benfro’s aethereal vision had shown him nothing awry was clear as soon as he opened his good eye. All the men and dragons lying about the hall were dead. Some had been ripped apart, others cut by blades of such sharpness they could only be the concentrations of the Grym favoured by warrior priests. He scanned the hall once more, searching for any sign of life before venturing out into the devastation. His companions, so keen to forge ahead before, now kept behind him, using his bulk as a shield. He couldn’t blame them.
They were halfway across the hall when the massive front doors exploded inwards, snow flurrying in from the darkness outside, wind whipping around them. Benfro froze on the spot, tensed against a rush of attackers. But there was nobody. Then the gale dropped and the doors boomed shut again.
He stepped over fallen men, some dressed in the robes of warrior priests but most wearing the clothes of simple folk. Those few men he had seen in the palace before being taken to the dungeon had dressed in a particular style, and he could identify many of them among the fallen, but there were plenty who wore different clothing.
‘Some of these men are from Candlehall.’ Martha was the first to speak. She knelt beside a body, rolling it over to reveal a clean-shaven young face. Dead eyes stared into nothing.
‘How can you be sure?’ Errol asked.
‘I spent a summer living there with my aunt, remember?’ She reached up and closed the young man’s eyes with gentle fingers. ‘And I’ve been here long enough to know what the local people look like too. They have different faces.’
Benfro dragged himself slowly across to the first dead dragon, a great hulk of a beast who lay on his side, wings crumpled around him. He recognized him as Borth, one of the dragons who had escorted him to the dungeons. Not far off, his companion Carno’s head was several paces away from his body.
‘What happened here?’ Nellore asked. ‘Who killed them all?’
‘Warrior priests.’ Benfro pointed to one of the dead men wearing the cloak and dark brown leggings of the Order of the High Ffrydd. He lay on his back, arms splayed. His face was cracked and blistered, one hand missing entirely, the stump of his arm a burned oozing mess. It wasn’t hard to work out what had happened to him.
‘Why?’
‘Because their leader told them to. And he is here, somewhere. I am sure of it.’ Benfro headed towards the wide corridor that led to the council room where he had been interrogated. More bodies littered the floor like so much discarded rubbish. Men and dragons were united in death, and he had to suppress the urge to breathe the Fflam Gwir, let everything be consumed by it. There would be time for that soon enough. At least he hoped there would.
He found Sir Nanteos in the chamber off the main passageway where he had undergone his brief interrogation. The old dragon had clearly put up a fight, his chest scored deeply with many burn lines where he had fought off at least the dozen warrior priests who lay dead around him. In the end they had been too many. Benfro stared down at the dead dragon. Sir Nanteos had not treated him well, but he had not deserved this. No one deserved this.
A noise in the far corner of the chamber startled him, and he turned too swiftly to face the danger. The wound in his side was like a shard of ice in his flesh, a cold so deep it burned. Benfro took a sharp breath, felt the fire building within him. The tables behind which his interrogators had sat and the low chairs they had used were heaped in a pile, as if someone had stacked them ready to burn. Or maybe used the subtle arts to hurl them there. Now the topmost chair tumbled off the heap, followed by another. And then a hand reached out, dragon-sized and deepest green. The fire died in his stomach as Benfro lurched across the room and began ripping apart the heap as if it were no more than kindling. In his frenzy he quite forgot his pain and weariness. Until he had shifted the last piece and freed Cerys from her prison.
She looked almost as bad as he felt. Her scales were smeared with blood, charred here and there by too-close encounters with the warrior priests and their blades of fire. She was bruised, shocked, frightened and above all else bewildered. Her aura clung to her like sweat, its colours muted as if she was trying to draw as little attention to herself as possible. For a long while she simply stared at him with no comprehension in her eyes at all.
‘Cerys. What happened here?’ Benfro placed a hand on each of her shoulders. At his touch, a spark of Grym ran between them. She stared up at him, her eyes black, no hint of the golden flecks he had seen before.
‘Benfro? How can it …? You …?’ Then her gaze slid past his face, focused on the form lying in the doorway. ‘Sir Nanteos?’
‘Don’t.’ Benfro reached out to stop her but lacked the strength. Cerys threw off the remains of the furniture that had hidden her from discovery by the warrior priests. She rushed past him, crossed the floor to where the dead dragon lay and knelt down beside him.
‘He saved me,’ Cerys said without turning to face him. ‘Myfanwy sent me to hide. I thought of going up to the room where I first found you, but there were men everywhere, casting the Grym around like it was fire. I was taking a short cut through here when he burst in. Didn’t say a word, just pushed me into the corner, threw all these tables and chairs at me. I didn’t know what was going on.’
‘How long have you been lying there?’ Martha had entered the room and was standing a few paces away from Sir Nanteos. Benfro hadn’t noticed her come in.
‘I don’t know. Not long, I don’t think. But it all happened so quickly. They were everywhere. So violent. I’ve never seen such rage. Not even the dragons of the Twmp took such joy in killing.’
Benfro reached out again to place a hand on Cerys’ shoulder. She had been tense, but collapsed into him at the touch, burying her face in her own hands.
‘How do we get to Go— the Old One’s tower from here?’ he asked.
Cerys started at the name, looking up at Benfro. ‘Why do you want to go there?’
‘Because that is where Melyn will have gone. He has to pay for what he has done.’
‘But he’ll kill you,’ Cerys said.
‘Not if we can find Magog’s jewel first. It was in Myfanwy’s house the last time it was seen. Jewel and bone and Fflam Gwir will put an end to his power.’
Confusion creased Cerys’ brow. ‘But we need herbs and oils to make the Fflam Gwir. A mage to chant
the incantations. Where will we find all these things?’
‘Think, Cerys. You know what I can do. We do not need herbs and oils. Dragons never truly needed them.’ Benfro took a step closer to the dead dragon. ‘Farewell, Sir Nanteos. We may not have met on the best of terms, but I wish you well in the next life.’ He took in a shallow breath, then exhaled. Pale blue flame burst from his mouth and nose, spreading out across the fallen dragon as Cerys leaped back. It devoured Sir Nanteos with remarkable speed, fed by the Grym that pulsed through the palace more strongly than anywhere Benfro had ever known. In only a few minutes, the body had been rendered down to the finest white ash, a heavy pile of clear jewels heaped up where Sir Nanteos’ head had lain.
‘How …?’ Cerys’ voice was almost a whisper.
‘I don’t know,’ Benfro replied, ‘but it is not something of which I am ashamed.’
She stared at him with something like fear in her eyes, and then her expression changed. As if she had made up her mind about something, set the past behind her.
‘When you killed Fflint with the fire I thought it merely a foul weapon. A cheat of the most base and cowardly kind. But you are right. This is not something to be ashamed of. It is the greatest of gifts. I hope that you will be able to do the same for all the dragons that have fallen this day. Come. I will show you the way to Myfanwy’s house. Let us find this jewel you seek. Put an end to this madness.’
35
In the years and centuries before Gog and Magog began their petty bickering over who should win the hearts of Ammorgwm the Fair, the palace of Nantgrafanglach thronged with the great and good of dragon society. Here would ancient Palisander hold his summer court and the young half-sisters Earith and Myfanwy delight and tease their suitors in equal measure. It is said the parties could last for weeks and the palace swelled in size to accommodate all. For such was the hospitality of dragons in those days.
The passing of Palisander brought an end to those carefree times, and soon after the brothers began their squabbling. Appalled by the destruction of Claerwen, Gog cast the first of many spells that would hide Nantgrafanglach away. The parties ended, the dragons dispersed to all four corners of Gwlad, and the massive halls fell into disuse.