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by A. A. Attanasio

  So does Morgeu. Her naked wraith looms closer,

  gloating over the fallen wizard.

  With his last strength, Merlinus swings his staff at

  her, and where it slices through her shape she bleeds green fire and a starry frost that falls to the ground and skitters like clots of voltage across the tiles.

  A tormented scream squirts from her. The black of

  her gaping mouth widens wider than her shocked face,

  swallowing all of her into nothing.

  Breath jolts into the wizard's lungs. He exhales a

  vehement curse, a magical cry meant to clear the space around him of all threat.

  Superhuman screeches cut the darkness of the

  garden. Peering outside, Merlinus glimpses Ethiops'

  slithery tonnage blot the stars on his rapid climb into the night. And then silence rolls over him and the floral dreams of the sleeping garden.

  *

  The Furor paces the foothills above the City of the

  Legion. He crouches among the woods like the wind

  suffering through the trees. There is too much dangerous magic here for him directly to expose himself. The citadel below is an immense magnet, pulling energy into its black stones along force lines in the earth.

  With catgut cries, the Daoine Sid flit through the

  clawing grass in the plains outside the city. They appear to the god as flickers of evening flame running over the daystruck grass, so small, he could crush any of them in one fist. Together they are a holocaust, a hornet swarm, a slavering wolf pack. He stays low in the hills, grinding his teeth, tugging at his beard, pondering the problem like a nervous chess master.

  The citadel below is a black egg. Inside, the

  Dragon's evil spawn spools through its syrups. A

  monstrous fetus gathers form and strength. By spring, it

  will hatch and release the abomination, another shape of the Dragon's hunger, intent on feeding the world's serpent with his flesh and the bodies of all the Rovers of the Wild Hunt.

  The Furor senses the demon Lailoken in the citadel

  as a smoldering clot of heaven's fire. Painfully, he reminds himself that his adversary is, after all, a Dark Dweller, and it is far too late for any direct confrontation. The demon has found his powers and will be a formidable foe—especially now that the Fire Lords are interfering.

  With the sword Lightning in their grasp, their intent can only be the arming ol a human to murder him. Will it be the demon himself who emerges from this serpent's egg with the sword in his hand?

  To answer this question, the Furor has tried to find

  the Fire Lords. He has trailed the faint shimmer of the sword Lightning's aura across these very hills and dense forests westward to where the stars bend down and enter the earth. His weapon has been taken into the underworld, where the Sid live in dangerous alliance with the Dragon.

  Farther yet to the west, on an island in the Scoti Sea known as Avalon, the sword Lightning has risen and lies imprisoned. He can feel it like a cold thread of wind blowing from inside the blind stone of the island itself.

  It touches him at his heart, where a fateful wound

  calls to it. The timewind has marked him for death by this sword—unless he keeps his distance.

  Not daring approach Avalon directly, the Furor has

  sent his ravens there to spy for him—and none have come back.

  So, he must wait and see what hatches from the

  black egg when spring comes. An army will spill forth, of that he is certain. They will emerge in the spring, for no commander in his right mind, not even a demon, would

  leave the sanctuary of the citadel with winter storms coming.

  With the thaw, the time for battle will arrive. The

  Furor has no doubt the Dark Dweller will be at its heart, driving it with all the fury of his mad mission. And the Aesir god will be ready.

  This winter, he will take counsel with his own

  demons, the four he has summoned from the Gulf by the magic of the gods who sleep now on the Raven Branch.

  For the sake of the sleeping gods who trust him and by the strength of the Dark Dwellers that serve him, he will crush whatever hatches from this black egg.

  *

  Morgeu lies on the couch in her chamber, on her side, cheek in palm. Her stubborn forehead lies placid, though her closed eyelids flutter. To walk out of her body requires all the relaxed concentration her mind can lens.

  One shadow of anxiety, a crease of tension in the smooth marble of her flesh, and her trance will collapse to a dream.

  Years of experience have taught her how to slide

  like starlight out of her sleep and into the waking world, a wraith. Her apparition stands in the garden, gazing up into the night sky, where the stars look like crumbled chunks of light. Ethiops! she calls.

  Silence sifts through the murmur of a breeze in the

  shrubbery.

  Lailoken's magic is stronger than she had guessed.

  The demon face in the night that for so long has been sharing its strength with her is gone. Without it, she barely has the clarity to step away from the dark of her body without stumbling and falling to sleep.

  Carefully, she propels herself through the blindness

  of a wall and emerges in a courtyard of tall, straight poplars against star mist. Merlinus paces among the trees in a wobbly circle, hands clasped behind his back, hoary face upturned, talking to the sky.

  Is it Ethiops? she wonders, drawing closer to observe whom the old wizard addresses.

  Crouching among hedges, she approaches close

  enough to stare up through the tree-spires into the well of night. What she sees teeters like a dream. Surging streams of people flow through each other and crisscross on streets congested with metal wagons of many colors, all with black wheels and oozing fumes from underneath. Smoldering air rises among immense glass towers.

  Is this hell? The speculation staggers her, and she nearly topples unconscious. To steady herself, she backs away, too eagerly, and finds herself outside the city walls.

  Dawn streaks the long mane of the Furor. He

  hunches on the moors, so far off she can see all of him, a mountain in the east where the land rolls without any other prominence. His one eye glitters like the morning star, and his empty socket tunnels to black infinity.

  Morgeu trembles. The imposing sight of the gloomy

  god sheathed in the gray, amniotic glow of day spins a luminous dread through her—and she wisps away like a

  fume of dew.

  *

  Under the wind sock banner of the dragon,

  Ambrosius Aurelianus marches his small line of troops

  from the City of the Legion across the moors and onto the midland plains. Along the way, a meager contingent of Gorlois' forces joins up from their camp outside the city.

  They barely add to the ranks that continue growing very slowly as the coloniae make good on their pledges, volunteering a handful of their least desirable soldiers to the foolish Dragon Lord.

  Garbed in leather tunic and sporting a short Roman

  sword, Morgeu rides beside her father at the reins of a sturdy campaign wagon. The ornately paneled vehicle, with its posts of gorgon heads, copper canopy of hammered

  griffins, and large, solid wooden wheels painted with spiral serpents, requires four horses to move, yet Morgeu

  handles it expertly.

  She ignores Merlinus, looking right through him

  whenever he enters her field of sight. No visible wounds from their clash in the garden are apparent, yet the wizard senses a damaged air to her—a dangerous withdrawal as of a wounded beast compacting its rage. She will not

  underestimate the spirit reckoner again.

  In the presence of Ambrosius, Morgeu appears

  bright and attentive to the detailed needs of the fighting force, full of practical ideas about order of march, deploying scouts and sentinels, and se
curing supplies—insights

  gleaned from a lifetime of accompanying both her father and the fiana in their forays.

  Ambrosius, experienced in army command by book

  learning and war room games alone, absorbs her counsel gratefully. And Gorlois, proud of his daughter's military acumen and pleased with the possibility of having an

  aggressive Roman warlord for a son-in-law, defers to her judgments.

  Word of the scantling army travels north and east

  with peddlers and itinerant traders. The barbarian raiders, who have roamed at will since the retreat of the legions, seeking rich villas to plunder, cattle to slaughter,

  landowners and their families to slay and abandon to wild dogs and wolves, gather gleefully. From the hills, the smoke of their campfires climbs to heaven with barbarian songs glorifying their intent to slaughter this stripling force.

  For over fifty years, Britons have hid in their walled and staunchly fortified coloniae, emerging only sporadically to protect what neighboring farmland they can with swift forays against local bandits. Many of the barbarians have never seen a well-coordinated and directed advance. They believe that these skinny phalanxes of spearmen with their proud banners will easily succumb to the Gaels' fierce and rampant attacks.

  Ambrosius, who has lived his whole life for this

  event gloats over the terrible surprise he has prepared for his enemies. During his six months as military commander in the City of the Legion, he has spent most of his time training a handpicked cadre of cavalry to abandon their swords and to use heavy oaken bows, forcing them to

  shoot moving targets while riding.

  To mark this squad as his own, he has issued them

  distinctive black leather armor: the ebony cuirasses are embossed with the dragon emblem of the Aurelianus clan.

  Every day since then, he has strained his imagination to visualize the battles to come in which he will ride with these men—his men—in all deviations of weather and terrain.

  Then, a month before the campaign began, he

  replaced the cumbersome weapons with lightweight

  Persian bows, the standard in the old Roman cavalry of his Sarmatian ancestors. The Persian weapon—a composite

  bow, made of alternating layers of wood, hide, and horn—

  possesses the utmost flexibility. Long and wickedly curved in the oriental manner, the exceedingly long draw of the string releases so powerfully that steel-tipped arrows can pierce armor—if the barbarians possessed any.

  When the gathered host of Gaels dash out of the

  woods and hills on foot to massacre the scrawny squad of British warriors they have trapped in the open, the cavalry fans out.

  Ambrosius himself leads the diffuse attack, and

  Theo and Merlinus watch from horseback among the

  nervous troops as the mounted bowmen fly back and forth before the charging, howling barbarians, releasing volleys with crisp and deadly accuracy.

  Gorlois stands atop his campaign carriage with his

  fiery-haired daughter at his side, both watching agog as the ferocious raiders topple in the distance like so many dead leaves.

  Not a single Northman closes within sword's length

  of the spry horses, and in minutes, the field lies dark with blood and arrow-bristled corpses. The stunned barbarians, prepared to face a few arrows but not anything like the missiles that whistle with the noise of the north wind and cut them down so far from their enemies, flail with berserk rage and keep advancing, too proud to turn and flee.

  The cavalry, to the ecstatic cheers of the relieved

  troops, circle the enraged warriors and kill them from all sides, sparing none.

  With the slaughter finished, the Dragon Lord

  dispatches the laughing troops to retrieve the arrows and plunder the dead of useful weapons. Ambrosius returns triumphantly to the head of his army, and, thus fortified, the war party continues marching east.

  Thrice more on that journey, blood-crazed gangs of Jutes, Angles, and Picts attack, and only their menacing cries reach the caravan. The fleet cavalry, with its powerful oriental bows, cuts down the enemy as they appear. A

  careful tactician, Anibrosius leads his troops along the river plains, as he has foretold, away from the woods and out in the open where the barbarians have to expose themselves to attack.

  With each new town that the war party passes

  through, eager soldiers swell their ranks, glad at long last to count themselves among the victors. Aquae Sulis,

  Corinium, Cunetio, Spinae, Calleva Atrebatum,

  Durocobrivae, and Verulamium: all pour forth their fighting men at the dragon banner's victorious approach. And much of this advance is in winter, a time when men are loath to leave the warm shelter of their cities.

  That, too, is part of Ambrosius' strategy. The

  barbarian hordes have nowhere to hide in the snowy

  landscape. When the blizzards rage, the Dragon Lord

  retreats to the nearest walled colonia, and as the skies clear, they march again, always tracking down the larger barbarian tribes and butchering them in the sparkling forest clearings where they huddle. The work is slow and

  tedious—and the killing great.

  *

  Weary of death, Theodosius Aurelianus sits astride

  the highest scaffold of the campaign wagon. Limp and

  loose-jointed, he leans against the banner pole that bears the standard. The Draco wind sock, inscribed all in scales scarlet and jet, thrashes in a north wind out of a gray sky. It moans low, at the bottom of hearing, full of the

  unhappiness of the dead.

  From the scaffold's vantage, Theo watches the

  overcast sun dip toward a river dull as slag. Apart from the sentinels huddled in their furs building tonight's bonfires at the camp's perimeter, the snow-blotched riverbanks stand empty. Smoke from the troops in their tents threads tendrils of aromatic vapors—toasty cornmeal and seared goat

  meat.

  Theo watches Merlinus emerge from his tent and

  pull the cowl of his mantle over his gray locks. He moves nimbly across the hoof-stamped earth, not like an old man at all.

  Of course, Theo has known that the hooded figure

  approaching him is neither old nor a man. He seems to have known this for a long time. This odd benefactor of the Aurelianus brothers floats up the rungs and glides along

  the planks, black robe enlarged with wind, like a bat big with evil.

  "You summoned me, quaestor?" Merlinus says, settling close to Theo. For weeks, he has been reading the script of sorrow in the deepening lines of Theo's face.

  The wizard's heartflow enthusiasm has helped the

  lad with his unhappiness. Now Merlinus withholds that fluid ease. He has waited patiently for Theo to summon him, to speak his soul, and he does not want to distort the man's truth. He pulls his etheric field tighter about himself, compacting it to a miniscule, enshrined attentiveness, so concentrated within his mortal pith that his face becomes a mask.

  Theo's murky eyes focus on the bone-hollows and

  crêpe flesh of the hooded visage before him, and he sees the humanity there. "You are not all devil, are you?"

  "I am the man God made me."

  Theo holds his stare, authoritatively. "Do you

  dream?"

  The counselor's old eyes slim in their caves. "Of course."

  "I have been having frightening dreams."

  "The serpent man."

  "Yes—" The murkiness in Theo's stare drains away.

  "The serpent man. He comes out of the ground, in moldy old-fashioned armor—"

  "And he has your eyes."

  "Yes." Theo's face jerks as his mind skids on a new suspicion: "Is this your magic, Merlinus? Have you put these dreams in my sleep?"

  "You think I can?"

  Theo offers a fatigued look.

  "No. I have not touched your dreams," Merlinus replies. "This is someo
ne else."

  "How do you know this?"

  "Think, Theodosius. These dreams have haunted

  you for many years before our tutelage."

  Theo looks away, toward the metallic river, to

  ponder this. "You are right. I've had these dreams long before I met you." He pauses. "Then I know who it must be. An ancestral shade."

  "More than that. If what I have seen of this visitant proves true, he is a magus."

  "Your strange sight frightens me."

  "God's gifts should not wither unused within us.

  Even the bishop is pleased with my insights into his

  dreams. It is an insight I trust."

  "This ghost, this shade of my ancestor—he is a

  sorcerer?"

  "In trance, I see this, Theo. He has mastered some means of drawing power from the Dragon, the immense

  sentience within the fiery earth."

  Theo quails. "Satan?"

  "No." Merlinus denies this with a vigorous shake of his head, opening his cowl to the stiff wind so that his beard fluffs out and his gnarly hand must restrain it. "The Dragon is not a demon, Theo. The Dragon is a creature. It lives in the Earth full of luminous strength, and it eats whatever it can catch. But we can also eat from it. It's not made of bone and flesh but of an essence more pure than fire—a sinuous kind of light. I think your ancestor learned how to draw on that light, how to feed on the blood of the Dragon."

  "And the dreams?"

  Tilting confidentially closer, Merlinus says, "For centuries, this magus has thrived in the loamy crust of the Earth. For centuries, Theo. Think on it. He is not quite human anymore. One cannot touch the Dragon without

  being touched. It changes people. Not just their bodies—

  which turn into a sticky kind of light, a plasm with its own peculiar nature that no longer needs sustenance or even air—the Dragon's blood changes their minds, as well. It opens them to the long horizons between moments. Years pass as days there."

  "How do you know this?"

  The man's frightened air demands the truth, and

  Merlin confides, "I am very old, indeed. I know something of time and phantoms, and I tell you that the ghost of your forefather is disappearing into the gap between the

  moments. He must find his way back into time through his seed."