The Bitter Twins

by Jen Williams

  The newly named Celaphon wriggled in Hestillion’s arms. She wished the queen would stop using her family name; she had only revealed that because she thought she was talking to her god.

  ‘I don’t care what is meaningful for you or not. I am keeping Celaphon. You cannot have him.’

  ‘A name already? You people and your names.’ The queen came further into the cell, her glittering eyes fixed on the young war-beast, and Hestillion regretted telling her Celaphon’s name, too. ‘But if you do not care what is meaningful to us, Lady Hestillion, why did you come here?’

  ‘I did not come here! You took me.’

  Silence fell in the chamber. Celaphon turned in Hestillion’s arms, resting his heavy head on her shoulder.

  ‘Did we, Hestillion Eskt? You did not resist. We felt your need to escape.’ When Hestillion did not answer, the queen turned back to the wall, which opened at her touch. ‘Interesting. There will be more food, for our old enemy. Why not? It is a runt, and will die soon of its own accord.’

  With that she slid from the room, leaving Hestillion and the new war-beast in an uneasy silence.

  7

  Ezion,

  Forgive this very brief note, but as I’m sure you can imagine it is dangerous to linger too long anywhere, and in this tiny village we have an opportunity to sleep under a roof. I intended to make the most of that.

  I hope with all my heart that you are all safe. How are Carla and the children? How is Bernhart? If you have any sense you will be lying low. Invest in foods that last a long time, don’t go travelling unless you absolutely must. Don’t forget about the staff either, Ezion – they have worked with our family for generations. They are our family. I want you to imagine my face as I am telling you this, and know that if I hear otherwise there will be trouble. (I’m sure you hate this, being given advice by your big sister, but you know I’m right. I think you’ve always known that).

  It will surprise you to hear that I am travelling with the Eboran woman Nanthema. Remember her? I suspect you do. We are heading to Ebora, hoping we’ll find some answers there. I will write to you again as soon as I know more. Please kiss Carla and the babies for me, and tell them Aunty Vintage loves them.

  Extract from the private letters of Lord Ezion de Grazon

  Noon leaned forward in the harness, hearing the creak of the leather as it stretched to support her, and pressed her hands to the scales on the back of Vostok’s neck. Below them, the outskirts of Ebora lay under a fine covering of glittering frost: overgrown fields like a frozen sea, the occasional ruin sitting at the end of an abandoned road. The days were growing warmer as they edged towards spring, but at this hour of the morning winter’s teeth still had some bite. It had been agreed that they should take turns patrolling Ebora; every day, they would watch the borders and see what they could see. Since the skirmish at the coast they had heard nothing further of Jure’lia activity, but they had to assume that their enemy was still active. Under Noon’s fingers, Vostok’s blood surged hot beneath her pearly scales and ivory feathers. Noon grinned to herself. She was chilled to the bone, they were hopelessly outnumbered and everyone was in grave danger, but she was flying a fucking dragon.

  ‘How it has all changed,’ said Vostok. ‘I remember when—’

  ‘Vostok, if you’re about to tell me how you remember when all this was a field of golden wheat, or a landing platform for war-beasts made of pink marble, or some bloody thing, please don’t.’

  ‘It was an orchard, actually.’ Vostok rumbled in the back of her throat, sounding aggrieved. ‘Memories are important, child. As well you know.’

  Noon bit her lip. ‘Yeah. I know. Sorry.’

  Memories were a sore subject. The other war-beasts of the Ninth Rain, who had been born from their own silver pods over the course of the long winter, did not remember Ebora in all its old glory. They did not remember anything at all of their past lives – not even their own names, let alone what it was to fight the worm people, to defend Ebora, or to fly in formation with their brothers and sisters.

  ‘We will find a way around it,’ she said, trying to sound surer than she felt. ‘Tormalin is working hard to make a connection with Kirune, and Aldasair, well, they are both doing everything they can—’

  ‘They all must work harder. They must learn to listen. I cannot hold off a Jure’lia invasion on my own.’ Vostok brought her great wings down abruptly once then twice in quick succession, causing them to surge higher in the sky. Noon moved her hands back to the reinforced strap on the front of the harness and squinted against the freezing wind.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘We are not alone in the sky. Something else is flying here. Look, towards the mountains.’

  Noon blinked stinging water from her eyes, and peered at where Vostok was steering them. She spotted it almost at once – a small black shape against the grey, edges blurred from the speed of its own wings. Her stomach dropped at the same moment her chest tightened with excitement.

  ‘It’s the fucking Winnowry. What are they doing here?’ Noon pressed her lips together. It was extraordinary really, but it had been some time since she had spared the Winnowry, and its miserable cells full of fell-witches, a single thought.

  Below her, Vostok chuckled. ‘You cannot guess?’

  ‘If they think they are taking me back to that shit hole . . .’ Noon laughed. She was riding a fucking dragon. ‘Shall we go and show them what your fire can do, Vostok?’

  In answer, the landscape below became a blur as they shot towards the black spot in the distance. Noon leaned low over Vostok’s back, keeping the shape in sight as they flew. As they drew closer, she saw that it was indeed one of the Winnowry’s giant bats, very like the one she had escaped on herself. There was a woman sitting astride it, wearing a blue and grey cloak, as well as a thick fur-lined hat against the cold. Another fell-witch, and an agent of the Winnowry. She did not retreat as they closed in, although Noon saw her tense in the saddle, her mouth opening to murmur some command to her understandably skittish bat. No bat born in the last few hundred years had seen a living, breathing war-beast. Vostok came close, then held herself hanging in the air, lazily beating her wings so that the wind ruffled the bat’s fur.

  ‘Oi! Lost, are we?’

  The woman smiled. She was young, not much older than Noon, and her skin was a warm brown. Curls of glossy black hair peeked out from under her hat. She looked like she had a face that smiled often, and there was a confidence in the tilt of her chin that felt out of place in someone about to be roasted by a dragon. The hat and the hair partially obscured the bat-wing tattoo on her forehead.

  ‘Fell-Noon, I presume?’

  ‘That was never my name.’ Noon placed her bare fingers against Vostok’s neck and sought out the dragon’s life energy to generate her witch-fire. She took just a touch, and it filled her chest with warmth in moments. ‘And I’m never going back. They must know that by now.’

  The woman tipped her head to one side; a non-committal gesture. ‘I am not here to bring you home, believe it or not.’

  ‘This is Noon’s home,’ said Vostok. ‘Not some human prison.’

  For the first time, the woman looked unsettled. ‘It can speak?’

  ‘Of course she can fucking speak.’ Noon pursed her lips. The winnowfire she nursed within her was itching to be released. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I am Agent Maritza. I’m here because the Winnowry are curious. All sorts of stories are coming out of Ebora, spreading down across the plains.’ She eyed Vostok uneasily. ‘Looks like they’re true.’

  ‘True? How much evidence do you need?’ Noon gestured to the empty sky above them. Not long ago, the corpse moon had hung there, unmoving for centuries. When the Jure’lia returned, the old Behemoths had awoken, including the corpse moon – becoming something alive and vital once more. Agent Maritza gave her a rueful nod.

  ‘Fair enough. The worm people have been seen in the skies again, and they’ve left some of their muck ha
nging about the place too.’

  Noon settled back in the harness, considering. The last thing she wanted to do was have a cosy chat with a Winnowry agent, but the bad winter had closed most of the newly open routes to Ebora. In truth, they desperately needed the information. She could tell from the careful stillness below that Vostok agreed with her.

  ‘Been up to their old tricks, have they?’

  Agent Maritza nodded briskly, suddenly businesslike. ‘In a few places, yes. They’ve eaten their fill, puked up that green stuff of theirs, and even left a few drones bumbling about the place.’ The woman’s mouth turned down at the corners, and Noon couldn’t help frowning in sympathy. ‘But it has not been as devastating as you might think. It’s been patchy, almost. They attack, and then disappear, as if they’re confused or unsure. The Behemoths themselves . . .’ She paused. ‘How much do you know, of what happened?’

  ‘More than we care to tell you,’ rumbled Vostok.

  The woman blinked, and then continued. ‘The old crashed Behemoths scattered throughout Sarn repaired themselves, dragging their shattered bits together. You would not think it possible for them to fly again, but they’ve managed it.’

  Reluctantly, Noon thought of the Behemoth wreck in Esiah Godwort’s compound. The man’s obsession with studying the ruined thing had outdone even Vintage’s passion for Jure’lia artefacts. Although Noon had blown half of it to pieces with her winnowfire, she wouldn’t be surprised to hear that it was also floating around the sky somewhere. She remembered the shrivelled corpse of Tyron Godwort, Esiah’s son, who had been trapped in the heart of the monstrous structure. The boy had died for his curiosity too.

  ‘They are weak still,’ said Vostok, her tone musing. ‘Usually they would hide, and have centuries to build and repair their creatures. Now they must limp as best they can.’

  Noon placed a hand on the dragon’s neck again. Be cautious. We shouldn’t share too much. Vostok’s assent was a warmth in her blood.

  ‘How many war-beasts have been birthed?’ Agent Maritza smiled. ‘Is that even the right term? And how many pods did the tree-god shed? What condition are they in?’ A gust of chilly wind tugged at her hat, and she pulled it firmly back over her forehead. Her bat showed no signs of tiring.

  ‘What makes you think I would tell you? The Winnowry can go fuck themselves. Tell them that from me.’

  Agent Maritza snorted. ‘You honestly think the Winnowry care about one little runaway witch? The whole of Sarn has more important things to think about now. Besides which, from what I’ve heard, they’ve written you off as a dangerous lunatic anyway.’

  Immediately, Noon felt Vostok’s anger rise to meet her own, and they both moved as one. Noon lifted her hands to shoot a thin jet of winnowfire directly at the agent just as Vostok ducked her head. The green flames burst into a sheet of fire a foot away from the woman, who was yanking hurriedly on the reins of her bat to bring them out of range. Noon leaned back in the harness, savouring the way her stomach seemed to press into her chest as Vostok propelled them up above the hapless agent and her mount. Vostok brought her head low and roared, a stream of violet flame shooting from between her jaws. For a moment, Noon thought the dragon had had enough of Agent Maritza and had decided to blast her and her mount from the sky, but when the heat haze had cleared from her eyes, the agent was still there, although she was struggling to control a very startled and slightly singed bat. The giant bats of the Winnowry may well be trained to deal with winnowfire calmly, but a dragon was another matter entirely.

  Vostok roared again, still hanging over the pair with her jaws wide, her violet fire an ominous light in the back of her throat. Agent Maritza, one arm wrapped several times around the reins, raised her free hand and a glove of green fire appeared around it. Noon laughed, delighted.

  ‘Oh, do you really want to see what we can do together, Agent Maritza?’ Vostok almost seemed to thrum with power beneath her. The dragon wanted a fight, and so, Noon realised, did she. ‘The flames make a very pretty combination. I promise it’s worth seeing, just before we melt the eyes out of your face.’

  The bat was still struggling to get away, and after a moment the winnowfire coating the agent’s hand winked out of existence, and she took up the reins with both hands.

  ‘If you think you’re safe out here in the middle of nowhere, you’re wrong.’ The agent tried to inject a jeering note into her voice, but her face was moist with sweat, and it didn’t quite ring true. ‘When Sarn falls, so will Ebora.’

  The bat arched up into the air and turned, heading back towards the mountain as swiftly as it could go. For a second, it felt like the most natural thing in the world to pursue her, to blast her from the sky with a combination of green and violet fire – they were of one mind, in that place where to Noon things seemed to make sense again. But then she thought of Vintage’s voice, no doubt telling her that it was foolish to murder someone simply over an insult. Simply because you wanted to.

  The woman and her bat were a dot now, a smudge against the grey of the Bloodless Mountains, while all around them the day was filling with brighter, if not especially warmer, sunshine. Noon rubbed her fingers together; they were like sticks of ice, although she hadn’t felt cold at all – not while Vostok’s anger warmed her.

  ‘Come on, then,’ she said, taking up the harness strap again. ‘I expect Tor will want to know about this.’

  8

  Tor stood in the courtyard with his arms crossed, and watched the big man attempt to wrestle the griffin to the floor.

  Or at least, that’s what it looked like he was doing. Bern the Younger actually had a long thin length of rope in his hands, and was trying to take measurements, but Sharrik was having none of it. He had pressed his body flat to the flagstones, like a cat that did not want to be picked up, and he kept unfurling his enormous wings, none too gently pushing Bern away.

  ‘By the stones, Sharrik, will you not keep still? It would hardly take a moment if you would stop fidgeting about.’

  ‘I do not want that harness.’ The griffin’s voice was a low gravelly rumble. ‘I want armour, with jewels on, and gems. Like in the paintings.’

  ‘Yes, well.’ Bern the Younger stepped back, looking the war-beast down from head to thrashing tail, seeking out a breach in his defences. ‘We don’t have any of those at the moment, so we’re having to make do, my friend. Your last harness did not survive the fight at Coldreef, and I’m sure it’s because it was poorly fitted.’

  ‘It is the finest leather we have,’ put in Tor. ‘I have made sure of that. One day we may find armour befitting your majesty.’

  Sharrik turned one huge red-ringed eye on him, as if he sensed mockery of some sort. Seeing the griffin distracted, Bern stepped in under his wing and hurriedly began to stretch the rope around his great muscled shoulder. Not for the first time, Tor wondered at the man’s ease with the creature; Sharrik was huge, even bigger than Vostok, their dragon war-beast, and stocky with it. The griffin’s thickly muscled legs, those of a great cat, were shaggy with fur, and his thick neck ringed with blue, white and grey feathers. His long wings – the wings of an eagle, like Vostok and Jessen – were a pale blue, with long black flight feathers at the tips. As usual when he saw Sharrik, Tor found it difficult to look away from his great curving black beak. It looked sharper and more lethal than his own beloved sword, the Ninth Rain. Bern clearly felt no such unease around Sharrik, but then, he and the griffin had grown close, in the way that war-beasts and their companions did, over time. Or were supposed to, anyway.

  ‘Vostok said that is what we are due,’ said Sharrik, although his tone was less certain than it had been. ‘Jewels and such. We are to be celebrated, feasted.’

  ‘There we go, nearly done.’ Bern straightened up and Sharrik lifted his wings menacingly. Tor wasn’t sure if the man was foolish or brave, but then again, he was so tall and broad across the shoulders, if any human had a chance of wrestling a griffin into submission, it was probably Bern the Younge
r. He had come with his people to help rebuild Ebora, and had been present in the Hall of Roots when Ygseril had birthed the silver war-beast pods. Since then, most of his people had returned to Finneral, but he had remained, continuing to clear away much of the devastation wrought by centuries of disuse, and lending a strong hand where it was needed. He had since witnessed the birth of each war-beast, side by side with Aldasair. ‘Now, if you’d stopped behaving like such a baby about it, this would have all been done an age ago.’

  Tor turned away as Bern continued to coax the griffin into having his measurements taken. They were in the biggest courtyard in the palace, a place that had once sported several small circular gardens and a large pond in the centre. The gardens, all gone to seed or full of dead plants, had been cleared away to make more room, while they had refilled the pond with fresh water. Bern had built a big wooden shelter alongside one wall, and widened the biggest entrance to accommodate the beasts as best they could. The truth was, they were too big to be comfortable in many parts of the palace, and this courtyard was the largest free space they had. The far wall, which had once been covered with a beautiful and ancient mosaic – teeming fish of red and yellow – was now marred with deep scratches, violent enough to have scattered hundreds of the delicate tiles from their beds and exposed the grey clay beneath. He frowned at it.

  ‘Here, look, Vostok is coming back. See how fine the harness looks, Sharrik!’

  Tor turned at Bern’s words and looked up to see the wide stretch of the dragon’s bulk casting them into shadow, her taloned feet outstretched to land. She did so lightly, the violence of her wings briefly buffeting the courtyard with wind, and then Noon was climbing down from her back.

  ‘My lady Vostok. How was the new harness?’ Bern approached the dragon respectfully, one hand tugging thoughtfully on his neat yellow beard. ‘It wasn’t uncomfortable in flight? No chafing? You weren’t restricted in any way?’