by Simon Kewin
So that was it. She'd heard mention in the old tales about the despair that afflicted those encountering dragons. “We have our ways. The creature's aura isn't affecting me, it's the flame I'm worried about. The anger filling her is terrible.”
The boy nodded. “Xoster's mind is all but gone. She is consumed by fury because of what was done to her.”
“What was done to her?”
“She is the mother of all the other dragons, and now only she survives. The undain slaughtered her children. This was many years ago and she has lived alone ever since, consumed by fury. It's all that's left of her now.”
Fer ducked behind the rocks as another gout of flame raged overhead. The heat on the top of her head was intense. Distantly she was aware of Menhroth, screaming at his soldiers to destroy the dragon. The King feared that Fer would escape. The tiniest flame of hope ignited in her heart. “Yet you tamed her, rode her?”
“Barely. I found her a month ago, in the high north, at the end of the Wyrm Way. She nearly killed me, more than once. Eventually I managed to make her understand what was happening, what we had to do.”
“She let you fly her?”
The boy nodded his head from side to side in a gesture of uncertainty. The slightest grin crept across his features. For a moment he was just a boy again. “In part. Sometimes I think she forgets I'm there. It's dangerous when she starts diving and looping, but she tolerates me. I explained about the White City again and again and eventually she understood. We flew here down the wyrm roads to destroy them all.”
“And can she destroy them all?”
Lugg let out a breath of air and looked Fer in the eye. “Truly I don't know. But I don't think we can stop her trying.”
19. Crashing to the Ice
Andar
Cait watched on helplessly as the second and third bone catapults lurched into life, frames twitching as their arms strained backward to unleash their boulders against the walls of Caer L'dun. The first projectile had smashed through the walls not far away. She'd felt the old stones quake at the force of the impact. More than one dragonrider had been hurled to the ground, and others lay crushed under falling masonry. Perhaps the next boulder would hit the tower she and Hellen stood in. Perhaps the living machines would even try and topple the watchtower itself. It would explain why Menhroth had gone to the trouble of crafting the huge siege engines. With the Spirit being piped directly into them, they had to be capable of enormous destruction.
The wyrm lords unleashed volleys of arrows at the machines, hundreds of black bolts arcing over the river like scribbles in the air, but they couldn't reach the catapults. Even if they did they'd probably have little effect. In construction, the catapults resembled the Harvesters she'd encountered in Angere: roughly lashed together assortments of bone and flesh. Ran's knife blows and Nox's bullets had had little effect on those creatures; she'd only been able to defeat them when Bethany showed her how to send ice creeping through them to crack them apart from the inside. The catapults were much bigger and more distant, and she was already bone-weary, but perhaps the approach would work again. There was nothing else to try. She had to be quick; there was only a moment before the catapults fired.
She steeled herself for the effort. In Angere she'd blacked out from the agony of destroying the second creature. Doing that now would help no one. But even as she reached within for the storm of ice to throw at the engines she saw she was too late. At some signal from the undain the two remaining siege mechanisms unwound, weights dropping and wheels spinning to send the arms jerking forward.
She felt the screams from all three machines a moment before she saw them go wrong. Instead of hurling their weights high into the air, the frames of the two machines buckled, as if their strength had suddenly gone, the bindings holding them together coming loose. Their arms wheeled forward unhinged. One came free completely, spinning through the air with a huge whirring sound, dragging scraps of the catapult framework with it, boulder still cupped in its enormous hand. The arm cartwheeled along the ground, end-over-end, then crashed to the ice half-way to the walls.
The other machine remained in one piece but for some reason the catapult didn't release its projectile. Instead the arm pivoted fully round and smashed into its own base, sending bones crashing, throwing the undain attendants manning the machine aside as the contraption collapsed into a jumble of useless fragments.
Cait felt the three sorcerous machines die, felt the fear in their choked screaming through the aether before it cut abruptly off.
There was another moment of silence across Caer L'dun, both sides watching events on the ice. Cheers went up from the wyrm lords on the walls, snarls of rage from the undain answering them.
“What happened?” said Hellen. Her expression was a mixture of astonishment and distaste. “Why did those things destroy themselves? Did you manage to get inside their minds?”
Cait had sensed the panic of the machines clearly. “No. The Spirit feeding them, maintaining them, was cut off. It's like their power supply was severed just as they were about to fire. They … asphyxiated.”
“Those are pipelines trailing out of them?”
Cait nodded. “They must lead to the White City. Something's happened there, cutting off the flow to the machines as they fired.”
Hellen stared westward to the river, eyes narrowed, as if unable to believe what she was seeing. “Fer, perhaps,” she said quietly
“In Angere?” asked Cait. “Can you see her there?”
“No, no. It's too far. After all the magic we've worked I can barely see my own hand straight.” Hellen smiled a weak smile. “Still, I suppose it doesn't matter what the reason is, it came just in time.”
“Yes.”
On the ground, the wyrm lords were racing to defend the breach in the walls, directed by a screaming Barion. While some of the riders climbed onto the ruined walls, swords drawn to face an undain onslaught from the river, others tried to pull clear the injured lying half-crushed under the fallen stones.
“I'm going to help them,” said Hellen. “I can't mend bones and close wounds from this distance.”
“I'll come, too,” said Cait.
Hellen looked like she was about to disagree but thought better of it. She headed for the staircase.
Borrn moved ahead of her. “I'll go first.”
“If you must,” said Hellen. “There are none of the creatures there, not at the moment.”
“Even so, Ran and I slayed many of them on the stairs. I'd like to be sure they're dead and not waiting to grab your ankles as you walk by.”
At the foot of their tower, the remains of many undain were strewn about on the stones of the ground. Cait turned away from the sight of the hacked, broken bodies of the attackers, at the frank, accusing stares on their dead faces. The two wyrm lords had fought off a huge number while Cait and Hellen worked their magic from the high window. Ran was expressionless as he studied Cait's reaction to the slaughter.
Weaving across the body-strewn courtyard, the four of them ran for the breach in the walls. The quietness of the lull in the fighting had been replaced by a chorus of clanking armour, the swish of blades being sharpened, the stifled cries of the injured.
The fighting had been going on for several hours, and so far the wyrm lords had resisted, beating back wave after wave of attacking undain. But the cost to the defenders was grim. Many were dead, and many others terribly injured. One Red Wing rider sat propped up against a wall, staring into the distance in apparent disbelief, clutching his right hand to his ruined left shoulder, the point where his arm had once been.
Hellen and the other surviving witches of Islagray moved among the wounded, helping where they could to stem bleeding or, at least, to alleviate pain. The riders, too, helped, bandaging wounds or cauterising the worst with red hot iron brands. Cait turned away from such sights, but she couldn't escape the agonized cries of the wounded nor the sickening smell of singed flesh.
Hellen's jaw was set in a
line of grim determination as she knelt beside a green-tattooed rider, a woman surely not much older than Cait. The rider's eyes were wide and she breathed in tiny, rapid breaths. Hellen placed a hand on the rider's forehead and, after a moment, the rider's eyes closed.
“Not much glory in it, is there?” said Hellen.
“You've given her sleep?”
“It's all I can do for her, take her away from her pain. The damage is too great. Even Ariane would have been unable to help.”
Cait stared down at the peacefully sleeping rider. “What will happen to her?”
The expression on Hellen's face was stark. “She won't wake up. It's all I can offer her.”
“It's terrible,” said Cait. “Just terrible.”
“Yes. And it isn't over yet. The undain have lost five times as many as the defenders but the difference is they don't care. They'll keep throwing themselves at the walls. Their soldiers are dispensable and ours aren't. I don't know how such evil can be fought.”
Moments later, a great swelling roar from outside the walls signalled a fresh attack. Ran and Borrn came to shepherd Cait and Hellen away, back to the relative safety of the tower overlooking the scene. Hellen looked like she was going to refuse, stay by the walls where she could work what healing she could.
“You're more use up there,” said Borrn, indicating the tower with a nod of his head. Blood ran freely over one of his ears. “Working your spells on the attackers. Down here it just takes more of us to defend you.”
With a scowl, Hellen assented. They climbed to their room in the tower as the first screams, the first clangs of metal on metal, resonated around the fortress. The next wave of the undain assault had begun.
Barion came to find Cait and Hellen again an hour later. His chest heaved and his gaze darted warily around as if he constantly expected attack. There was a hint of madness to his bulging eyes, as if he was close to the point of breaking. Some heavy blow had sliced through the armour above his elbow. Blood ran down the leather protecting his forearm as if it were his armour that was bleeding. “We won't survive the next attack. We can't defend the Anward wall with that breach; it would take half our numbers. We're stretched too thin. You and the others of Islagray must follow me to the watchtower.”
Hellen hesitated, one eye on the press of bodies, the clashing swords on the battlements. “You mean to abandon them?”
“The defenders on the walls will buy you time,” said Barion without emotion. “There is nothing more we can do.”
“We'll be trapped like birds in a cage.”
“No. There is a secret tunnel beneath the tower you can escape through.”
“A tunnel?”
“Please, we only have a few moments.”
“Very well. Show us the way.”
Barion hurried from the room, clattering down the steps to the courtyard. He, Ran, and Borrn escorted them to the watchtower, fighting off the screaming undain attackers that launched themselves forward. Other groups of riders, Jenath and Beltaine among them, converged on the studded wooden doors. There were perhaps thirty wyrm lords in all, shepherding the ten or eleven surviving witches of Islagray. They entered the high-ceilinged hall that took up the whole of the ground floor of the watchtower. The riders set about barricading the doors, slotting oak beams into place to brace them even as heavy blows thudded upon them from outside.
When they were done, there was a moment of uneasy calm, the sounds of the fighting hushed by the thick walls.
Danny, Johnny and Merdoc appeared down the spiral stairs, wide-eyed with alarm as they peered into the hallway. Danny ran to Cait and clutched her tight. Johnny wandered up more slowly, stroking his chin as if pondering some deep mystery. Merdoc stayed where he was in the shadows of the doorway, flinching at each thump on the doors.
The walls of the hall were bare stone, but large, colourful tapestries hung upon them. The dragons seemed alive in the embroidery: wyrms soaring through the clouds, swooping around towers or across battlefields, flame unleashed on the armies depicted on the ground. Battles from ancient history. Cait recognized Caer D'nar in several of the scenes. The pictures were glorious, heroic, the huge dragons much more like those she'd imagined. Their glittering scales and the gold-edged fire breathing from their horned heads was beautifully stitched. But she'd seen what fighting really meant: the agonies and the horrors, the shattered limbs and the blind terror. The tapestries were a lie, a fantasy. She turned away from them.
“So, there's a tunnel,” said Hellen. She actually managed to look amused as she addressed Barion. “The riders of old actually thought it possible you might be attacked and defeated one day?”
“They knew what we might have to face,” said Barion, weariness in his movements. “They'd already been beaten in Angere and thought it likely such a thing could happen again. They built the passageway as a last resort.”
“And where does it lead?”
“The location of the other entrance is a secret known only to the Wing chiefs. The tunnel cuts a hundred yards through the ground and emerges below the waterline of the An. There are some of the original bridge foundations still in place there. The passage opens out between two of the old stanchions.”
“So we'll get wet?”
Barion shrugged. “A short swim into the water and back up to the surface. It's better than the alternative. Can you manage it?”
“Can you?”
Barion didn't respond to Hellen's question. “Come,” he said. “We will show you the way. Perhaps, if we are fortunate, we will be able to escort you to Islagray.”
“Those left outside that door will be killed.”
Barion's gaze fell to the worn stone tiles of the floor. He spoke hesitantly, his angry bluster gone. “Caer L'dun is lost. Our only hope is to retreat to the Isle. Perhaps, somehow, we can defeat the undain there. With your help, eldest of Andar. Those who remain will give us this chance to escape. We have fought well, fought with honour, and killed many of them. But you were right. We weren't enough.”
Hellen stepped closer and put a hand on his arm. “You did more than I thought possible. Much more. Andar may still survive to thank you.”
Barion didn't meet her gaze. He walked to one of the tapestries, the tapping of his boots loud in the quiet of the hall. The tapestry depicted a red and a blue dragon entwined in some aerial dance. The tower of Caer D'nar was visible in the background, surrounded by the teeth-like summits Cait remembered. Barion pulled aside the tapestry to reveal a low wooden door. Jenath produced a key on a silver chain and unlocked it.
Inside was a square stone room. In its centre a heavy iron grille, padlocked, covered a flight of steps leading down into the darkness. A barrel stood nearby, an array of unlit torches fanning out from it. A low fire glowed in a corner, smoke leading through a small flue in the roof. The riders had clearly kept this escape route prepared. Borrn and Beltaine took turns to light the torches and hand them out while Barion knelt to unlock the grille with a key of his own. His torch flickered and roared at the rush of air blowing up from under the ground. Jenath closed and locked the outer door behind them. Everything was done with a calm reverence, a quiet, as if it were some ceremony the dragonriders were performing, not the abandonment of their fortress and home.
They descended steep steps that wound beneath the tower. Cait clutched the rough rope strung down the steps. As they descended, the stones became slick with a green slime that made it treacherous underfoot. The air smelled of damp soil and the sickly scent of the oil burning on the torches.
At the bottom of the spiral, another heavy iron door barred their way. Jenath found more keys from her chain and used them to spring the three locks. With a discordant grate, the door swung open. Barion, behind her, held his sword at the ready, fearful of finding the undain waiting on the other side. There was no sign of them. The tunnel led into thick darkness.
Cait and the others shuffled forward, the passageway always sloping down. The walls were rough now, hewn or blasted f
rom bare rock by the riders of old. The shifting light of the torches cast misshapen shadows across the stones. Occasionally Cait splashed through pools of icy water. No one spoke. After perhaps twenty minutes the tunnel opened into a round cave that looked like it was natural. Stalactites dripped cold water onto their heads. Icy air blew down from two narrow air vents in the roof, and Cait caught the distant scent of leaf-mould and mud. On the far side of the room, the floor ended and the water began, a semi-circular pool of darkness lapping at the stones.
“It is only a short way,” said Barion as he stared into the pool. “A few yards down and then back to the surface. There are rings in the rock you can pull yourself along by. I'll go first and return if all is clear. If there is ice I'll try and break it apart.” An iron hammer lay beside the water, as if left there for exactly that purpose. Barion strapped his rider's sword to his back, then looped the hammer's strap over his wrist.
“And if you don't return?” asked Hellen. Her voice echoed strangely in the cave.
Barion sat on the lip of the rock, his legs in the water up to his knees. “Then I am dead and you must do as you see fit.”
He slipped into the pool, the water swallowing him up. Ripples furrowed its surface. Ran and Borrn stood alongside with their swords at the ready, wary of what might emerge. Jenath and the other wyrm lords guarded the tunnel they'd come down. There was no sound of pursuit, no thunder of hurrying feet down the passageway. Cait looked to the pool. She found she was counting to herself, waiting for Barion to reappear. After a minute there was no sign of him. She glanced at Hellen. The old witch's face was a frown. Danny squeezed Cait's hand.
After two minutes, and then three, there was still no sign of the rider. Then, in a rush of water he reappeared, gasping for air. Even in the light of the torches his skin looked blue from the cold water. “The way is clear,” he said. “Follow me through.”