‘Are you afraid?’ she whispered.
‘Yes.’
‘Me as well.’
Llandry’s house had been hit at some point, and the upper storey torn away. The lower part was still sound, and here she and Pensould, Ori and Avane had been living for the last several days. The quarters were cramped, but better than many others had found in Waeverleyne. Ori and Avane were in the kitchen, cooking something. Avane was teaching Ori a recipe from Glour; the quiet murmur of talk and the gentle clatter of cooking drifted through into Llandry’s living room, peaceful and soothing in its domesticity. Llandry remained in Pensould’s arms for a long time, trying to calm the frightened beating of her heart.
Pensould dropped soft kisses on her hair, his arms tightening around her. She lifted her face to his and he kissed her mouth instead, gently, learning the motions of human affection that must be so unfamiliar to him. His kisses grew deeper and more urgent, and Llan’s heart began to pound again with a different type of anticipation.
But something intruded upon her bliss, sounds that sent her labouring heart into a frenzy of sudden fear. She and Pensould broke apart, both frozen with dread, listening.
Nothing. No sound met her ears, not even the quiet, mundane conversation of Ori and Avane. Waeverleyne held its breath.
Then it came again. A piercing shriek and a shattering roar, horrifically blended. The tumult built and built, more voices joining the first, growing louder as it approached.
‘That is the war cry,’ Pensould whispered, his face whiter than she’d ever seen it before.
Llandry could only stand, rooted to the spot, her heart pounding so hard she feared it would burst. She didn’t want to go outside, didn’t want to see what now approached her beloved Waeverleyne. Hiding her face in Pensould’s shirt, she stifled a brief flood of hot tears.
‘Well, Minchu,’ he said quietly, stabilising her. ‘Now is the time to be brave. Can you?’
Blotting her eyes with shaking hands, she nodded. ‘I can.’
Ori and Avane came rushing in, their faces drawn and pale. ‘Up we go,’ said Ori tersely. ‘They’re here.’
‘No draykon shapes, remember,’ Llan said quickly, having to suppress her own instinct to Change right away.
Ori just shook his head impatiently, already yanking open the door. He jumped out, his wings carrying him out of sight. Llan and Pensould followed, leaving wingless Avane in her dark glasses to occupy the doorway.
The three of them reassembled atop the wreckage of Llandry’s upper storey. They stood, necks stretched, staring into the sunlit skies of Glinnery.
Over the city flew the first wave of draykoni. Glorious beasts of all sizes came in organised formation, largest at the centre, smallest fanning out to the sides. Their beautiful scaled hides glittered in the sun, shining in every colour of the rainbow. They roared as they flew, their combined war cry near enough to shatter the ears.
Behind them flew a second formation, and then a third. Llandry couldn’t speak. Thirty draykoni at least, rage pouring off them like water, enflamed with the desire to rend her home into pieces.
A whispered expletive came from Ori. It took Llandry a moment to realise he wasn’t looking at the advancing army of draykoni. His head was turned to look behind her.
She spun around. Something else approached the city, airborne and vast but not draykoni. At least, she didn’t think so. It was larger than almost every other draykon, roughly of a size with Eterna, the enormous green-and-white creature that led the charge. It flew oddly, its vast wings flapping ponderously in a manner not quite natural. It was dark, matt black, its hide swallowing the light instead of reflecting it the way scaled hide did. It had the wedge-shaped head, long neck and snaking, sinuous tail of a draykon, but somehow Llandry knew that it was not one.
Its movements were graceless, purely functional, and there was something oddly contrived about the way its neck moved, swinging its head from side to side as it took in the scene. Llandry had seen that form of movement before.
Her mind jumped back to Limbane’s Library, to one of the many laboratories that littered the building. He and several Lokants had stormed Krays’s Library not long before, bringing back with them a specimen of his engineering projects. The creature had obviously been modelled on a whurthag, formed of biological and mechanical materials with draykon parts added. She’d watched the thing moving around, fascinated and horrified in equal measure. It was so frightening because it looked and moved more or less like a whurthag, but it was empty: no animal soul in there at all. It was a machine, with the superior flexibility of a biological animal and at least some of the magical capabilities of a draykon. Its mind was blank, ready to do whatever it was instructed without any form of feeling or reasoning.
The beast now approaching Waeverleyne was the same. Only this one was impossibly large, and based not on a mere whurthag - which suddenly seemed all but harmless in comparison - but on a draykon.
To Llandry’s renewed horror, the thing cranked open its jaws, displaying teeth that shone with a disturbing metallic glint. A gout of blistering flame shot from its mouth.
‘No,’ she whispered. Legend said that draykoni breathed fire, but that had not turned out to be true.
No matter. Now they did.
‘There’s another one,’ Pense said softly, nodding in the opposite direction. Following his gaze, Llandry saw a second, identical monstrosity closing on Waeverleyne from the south.
‘And three,’ Avane said softly. From the west came another dark, terrifying shape, casting long shadows over the ground.
Three of them. Aysun’s machines were not equipped to deal with these beasts. She remembered the hide of the whurthag-thing, virtually impervious to weapons. Would her father’s specialised weapons be capable of piercing that unnatural skin? Could the things even be killed? If they were like the whurthag-machines then they weren’t really alive. That would mean they couldn’t die, either; they could only be broken. And disabling one single whurthag-construct had almost got two of Limbane’s team killed.
‘We’re done for,’ Ori said, his words emerging in a frightened croak.
Llandry wanted to reassure him - all of them - somehow, but she couldn’t. Because he was right. What possible defence could they muster against this new threat?
Chapter Seventeen
A short time later, Llandry sat in her father’s workshop, watching Aysun from an out-of-the-way corner. Papa was looking strained, like he was only just holding himself together. That was highly unlike him, but with a fearsome mechanical menace threatening the realm, everyone was looking to the engineers to provide a solution. Aysun was widely accepted as the best of them, but that didn’t make him a match for Lokant technology. How could he be expected to solve this problem?
The worst part was that he expected himself to be able to combat the draykon-things. Frustration was etched in every line of his face, and when he spoke his words emerged in a growl. His wife’s home was burning around him and he couldn’t fix it.
Many of the war machines he’d been building had been deployed, but they were designed with living draykoni in mind and it was obvious very quickly that they would have little effect against the fire-breathing constructs. Bullets, missiles and harpoons alike were bouncing harmlessly off their strange black hide.
Llan and her friends had been forbidden from participating in the fight - even now, when the threat to Glinnery was greater than ever. Frustrated, she’d gone to her father to beg a useful task from him, but he had nothing to give her either. So she waited, curled up with Sigwide in her lap. They were both shivering. Siggy wouldn’t speak to her at all, except to repeat the word “bad” every time some new sound of battle raging reached his sensitive ears. Llan’s corner was near the door, so she had a clear view when a young engineer came running into the workshop, panting out a breathless report to her father.
‘They’re targeting our machines, sir. Five are reported destroyed and the crews with them. It won’t
take them long for them to get the others down. The Commander’s calling for more to be taken out.’
Aysun shook his head. ‘Pointless. We’ll only lose them all. What I need you to do, Ven, is fob off the Commander for as long as you can.’
‘Ah, sir... he’s not exactly easy to-’
‘Go, Ven! I don’t care what you tell him, just keep him off my back.’
Ven left at a run.
‘Come on, Llan,’ Aysun said. ‘We’re going to find your mother.’
They found Ynara preparing for a journey. She and Devary looked as though they’d packed in a hurry.
‘Hello, loves,’ said Mamma, bestowing kisses on her husband and daughter. ‘We were about to come in search of you.’
‘Where to?’ Aysun asked.
‘Nimdre,’ Ynara replied, rapidly buttoning her coat. ‘And at once.’
‘My people may be able to help,’ Devary put in. That earned him a sceptical lift of the eyebrow from Aysun, not undeservedly. Llan couldn’t help wondering what exactly Nimdre was supposed to be able to do. This was more likely an attempt on Devary’s part to get Mamma out of harm’s way.
‘Not Nimdre,’ Aysun said. ‘Irbel.’
Ynara looked at him for a moment. ‘Will they?’
‘Unsure. There are some things they’ve been working on for a long time, secrets. We’re going to need them. If anybody can talk them into it, it will be you.’
‘They would probably agree more readily if you asked, Aysun.’
‘Can’t leave the city. They’ll accept you as my representative. And I’ll send Rufin with you.’
Ynara nodded. ‘Irbel then. Who am I to speak to?’
Aysun gave her a few names, none of which Llandry had heard before. Then he drew her to one side, and the next part of their conversation was held in undertones. Llan didn’t try to eavesdrop. She looked instead at Devary, who had borne the upset of his plans in silence.
‘You should come with us, Llan,’ he said with his soft smile. ‘Your mother would like to have your company.’
‘Only my mother?’
‘Naturally I would be pleased to have your company too.’
Llandry shrugged. ‘I can’t. We might be needed.’
Devary nodded. ‘I will look after your mother,’ he promised.
Better than you looked after me, I hope, Llandry thought, but she didn’t say it. That would be needlessly cruel.
Her parents returned. ‘Hug me quickly, Llan,’ said Mamma. Llandry obeyed, feeling unwilling to let go. Would she see Mamma again? That thought was too disturbing to dwell upon; she pushed it away.
‘Be careful, Ma,’ she said.
‘Always. Your father is going to escort us to the edge of the city, all right? And we’ll have Rufin with us, with all the firepower at his disposal.’ She smiled. ‘You’d better get yourself back within reach of the Commander.’
Llandry nodded, troubled. Ma would be travelling west in order to reach Irbel, a realm bordering Glinnery where engineering was held to be far more important than either summoning or sorcery. As far as anyone knew Irbel had not yet come under attack, but it was a reasonably long journey. Her mother would probably fly, while Dev and Rufin would have to keep up as well as they could on foot. But how would they get out of Waeverleyne without being spotted by the draykoni?
‘I’ll take care of it, Llan,’ her father said, apparently guessing her thoughts.
‘Of course, Pa.’
Then they were gone, leaving Llandry alone and feeling completely bereft.
The village that had hosted the city council was now largely empty again. Council business had halted with the appearance of the draykon constructs, there being nothing left to discuss nor opportunity to do so. The Elders had returned to Waeverleyne, there to oversee the makeshift infirmaries that were springing up all over the city, to muster more fire crews to battle the flames spread by the constructs, or to offer assistance to the Commander. Only Llan’s three friends were left, hiding in a tiny farm cottage on Iver’s order. A signal had been agreed between their group and the Commander: if they were needed, green flares would be fired on their side of the city. That meant they were to report to Iver, as quickly as possible.
If the flares were red, that meant they were to take draykon shape and attack. Immediately. Iver had planned a strategy for them and gone over it many times, but Llan knew they would be kept from carrying it out if at all possible.
She found Ori sitting in the window, watching the sky in case of a summons. Avane and Pensould were sitting on the floor nearby, trying to hold a conversation without much success. Llandry could almost touch the tension in the tiny room.
Ori looked up as she entered. ‘Any news?’
‘Some. City’s still burning. Pa’s sent Mamma off to Irbel to get help, though they don’t want the Commander to know about that just yet.’
‘Huh? Why not?’
‘Don’t know, but probably because Pa’s not sure they’ll send anyone. Apparently he’s asking for some kind of secret technology they’ve been working on for years.’
Ori rolled his eyes and turned back to the window. ‘Damn their secrets.’
‘Have you seen the Commander?’ Avane asked. ‘Is there something for us to do?’
Llandry shook her head. ‘Our orders are the same.’
Ori snorted his disgust. ‘We could at least be helping the fire crews. Or in the infirmaries. Something. It’s intolerable, just sitting here waiting to be called.’
‘You’d make a terrible soldier, Ori,’ Llan said, sitting down next to Pensould.
‘I know.’
Pense smiled down at her. ‘Remind me what the Commander said.’
Llandry shot him a puzzled look. ‘Which part?’
‘Specifically the part about what we are not allowed to do.’
‘Umm. He said we have to keep out of the fight until he says otherwise.’
‘Yes. But he specifically said he doesn’t want the enemy to know about the other two draykoni we now have on our side. So from this we may infer that it is our draykoni shapes he is concerned about, no?’
‘That sounds sensible, yes.’
‘Therefore, when he said to stay out of the fight, he meant that we must stay out of the fight in our draykon forms.’
‘That’s true!’ Avane said excitedly. ‘He didn’t say anything about our other shapes.’
‘Wouldn’t they be able to tell, though?’ Llan asked. ‘I mean, you keep saying you’d know me no matter my shape.’
‘They might sense a draykon soul, if they were to focus on one of us closely. But in the middle of this chaos they will not do that.’
‘You, sir, are a genius,’ Ori grinned, pointing at Pensould. ‘Let’s think about this. What does the Commander really need?’
‘Information,’ Llan said promptly. ‘They’re struggling to find a way to fight those things. The mechanical things don’t seem to have any weaknesses, though of course they must do somewhere.’
‘Birds then,’ Ori said. ‘Or something else with wings. We’ll get up close, see if we can figure out a bit more about them.’
Birds... or something else? ‘I’ve an idea,’ Llandry said. ‘Remember Eva’s gwaystrel?’
‘Yes!’ Ori said with enthusiasm. ‘She once said it’s almost impossible to conceal anything from Rikbeek. His senses are very keen.’
‘Aren’t they Lowers creatures, though?’ said Avane doubtfully.
‘Yes, but Rikbeek didn’t seem to have any trouble when he was here with Eva. She says he doesn’t use his eyes much anyway.’
‘Let us test this theory,’ said Pensould, and shape-shifted. He became a gwaystrel, so similar to Rikbeek that for a moment Llandry wanted to look around for Eva. They waited in silence for a few minutes while Pensould flew in slow loops around the room.
It can be managed, he reported. It is painful to my eyes, but not unbearably so, and I can keep them closed without diminishing my awareness of the environment.
/>
‘Brilliant, Pense!’ Ori said. ‘Let’s go!’
‘Hang on, wait a moment,’ Llandry said. ‘A group of four gwaystrels flying around in Glinnery will look odd. We’d make easy targets of ourselves.’
‘Sorcery,’ said Avane promptly. ‘We can probably manage a basic invisibility illusion, if we keep the expedition brief.’
Llandry chewed on a thumbnail as Pensould resumed his human shape. ‘Good idea. Can we all do it?’
‘I don’t see why not,’ Avane replied. ‘Sorcery comes from the draykoni in the first place, doesn’t it? I can teach you how it’s done.’
Ori beamed. That boy was hungry for knowledge, Llandry thought. There was nothing like the prospect of learning some new skill to cheer him up.
‘I believe we should work in pairs,’ said Pensould. ‘Then if one of us gets into trouble, the other will be at hand to help.’
‘Great idea,’ Ori enthused. ‘You will work with Llan, of course, so Avane and I will watch each other’s backs. Ready to go?’
‘I suppose so,’ Llan said, worrying that she’d missed or forgotten something. Whatever it might be continued to elude her, so she shrugged. ‘We’d better be fast, though. We still have to be ready to report - or attack - if the flares go up.’
‘Superfast,’ Ori promised. ‘So can we go?’ He had already jumped up, abandoning his post at the window.
‘Yep,’ Llandry said. ‘Let’s go.’
They left the village in gwaystrel form, flying towards Waeverleyne as a group. Pensould had insisted on taking the lead, with Llandry and Avane behind and Ori at the rear. Despite the invisibility illusion, Llandry felt exposed. Her gwaystrel senses were not fooled by Avane’s sorcery, so the other three were as obvious to her as they had been to her human eyes. It was difficult to believe that they were truly hidden to human observation, and much harder for draykoni to spot.
Llan’s tiny body shook with nerves as she flew towards the battle. She was grateful to be doing something constructive, but she couldn’t fly directly into the heart of the conflict without suffering some fear. The whole pack of invading draykoni were back and intent on causing as much destruction as possible; with the addition of the enormous, fire-breathing constructs, the risks were high indeed.
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