by J. D. Oswald
Another turn and the trees were much closer now. He could make out their tops, not the soft welcoming embrace of a great spreading oak or beech, but the sharp stake-like jaggedness of row upon row of firs. They were short too, stout canes scratching for life on the rubble and scree that rose out of the plain to lap at the edge of the ridge. There would be no slow crashing through the branches, each break taking a little from the fall, no winded landing in a thousand-year leaf-litter loam.
Benfro struggled against his tumbling, trying at least to straighten himself out. Quite why, he wasn’t sure. He didn’t particularly want to watch the hurtling ground as it rose to meet him, but somehow it felt right that he should be that way around. His panic began to subside, replaced with a resignation, an acceptance of his fate. Instinctively he reached out to the air and steadied himself for the impact.
It came quicker than he expected. Pain ripped through him like a landslide. His head and arms were thrown forward; the stout leather strap on his bag whip-cracked against his neck and shoulders. For a moment everything went black with the abrupt deceleration. And then suddenly he was being hauled back, pulled away from the ground on a hoist attached to a burning pin sunk into the flesh of his back.
Opening his eyes, Benfro saw the treetops rushing past at great speed. They were so close he could almost reach out and touch them as they slipped by. Yet they remained steadily distant. The wind pulled hard at his face now, stripping tears from his eyes. He sneaked a look to one side, fearful that the air would pull his head from his neck, and saw a sight so magical he would never tire of seeing it again.
His wings were unfolded to their utmost extent. He had not realized how big they had become, but they stretched away from him now fully twenty feet. They cupped the air. He could think of no better way of describing it. It was like his dreams only more visceral, more real. And, like his dreams, all he had to do was think about it and he could bank slightly, turn this way and that, rise away from the trees or descend until he dared not get any closer.
Unlike his dreams, each change of direction was accompanied by a twisting of the white-hot point that was their fulcrum, a pain so intense that it painted spots of light in his vision. He held still as best he could, staring straight ahead and trying not to feel the weariness that was beginning to seep through him.
The forest followed the land, dropping away from the ridge and the mountains. It was this slow fall that Benfro followed as he glided away from the monastery. He covered the ground with incredible speed, the forest below him now an impenetrable mass of leaves. The scrubby firs had given way to taller, more majestic pines, and these in turn were replaced by thick deciduous growth. The trees undulated over valleys that would have taken weeks to cross on foot, and yet they were seemingly endless.
In the farthest distance more mountains rose to pierce the blue sky with their white caps. For a moment Benfro feared he had turned full circle and was heading back towards his enemies. The rigid lock of his wings and the straight-line rushing of the trees below assured him that this was unlikely. And he could see his shadow arcing across the canopy ahead of him and to the left, a great winged beast, which meant the sun was still at his back and he was headed north-west. But the pain was fast becoming unbearable, little jabs of fire spreading from his shoulders along the wing edges, senses coming from parts of his body that had never felt before.
Benfro remembered a game he used to play when he was bored. Simple enough in its rules, he would hang by his arms from a branch, holding his full weight off the ground, and count. The longest he had managed was a hundred and seventeen seconds and he had felt the pain burn in his muscles then as it did now. More particularly, he remembered how his hands had simply stopped obeying his command to stay clenched around the branch, how they had relaxed of their own accord, leaving him feeling as weak as a spider’s web in a storm. The burning in his back and the new ache in his wings were beginning to take on the same quality that he recalled from his arms just before they could hold his weight no more. He could ignore the pain for quite a long time, focus past it, but there was no getting away from the fact that very soon his wings were going to crumple. And still there was nowhere to land, no gap in the solid green mass that spread beneath him.
It was closer now, the canopy. He could make out the shapes of individual trees, larger boughs poking up from the verdant sea that rushed past with dizzying speed. He wanted to push away from it, keep clear of the branches that whipped at his scaly belly and threatened to snag the heavy, dragging weight of his tail. But he seemed to have lost control of the air now, the trees reaching out to him with a magnetic embrace. He knew with a horrible certainty that his long glide was coming to an end.
The first branches caught his taloned feet, snagged and then released. With a last great effort, he tried to stop his forward motion, rear up as he had seen birds do when they came in to land. But there was no strength left in him. The next time he crashed into the canopy it was all he could do to fold his wings, to try to get them as close to his sides as possible before they were snagged and ripped in his inevitable descent. One tree domed up larger than its immediate neighbours and he ploughed into its leafy embrace with bone-breaking speed.
‘Bring me young Ramsbottom and pick out a handful of men to ride before dawn. You’ll be going to Tynewydd.’
Melyn watched as Captain Osgal bowed his assent and left the room without a word. There was no doubt the captain hated the boy, the angry glare in his eyes as his name was mentioned was enough, even if his mind wasn’t an open book on the subject. In ordinary times Melyn would have admonished Osgal for his lack of mental discipline, but these weren’t ordinary times.
Once more he saw the sight of the dragon perched on the stone dais in Ruthin’s Grove, teetering on the edge as if held there by fear. Melyn had been so sure he had the beast then. He’d even allowed himself a little smile of victory, knowing that the powerful magics he’d woven on the Calling Road had succeeded where a half-hundred warrior priests scouring the forest had failed. As he’d always predicted, the beast had come to him, even if it had taken a few weeks longer than he had anticipated.
But then it had all gone wrong. Seeing the dragon fall had been a disappointment; he would have liked to have captured it alive, questioned it, broken it before he cracked open its skull. But if he had to recover its mangled body from the bottom of the cliff, then so be it.
What he had never expected it to do was fly.
In his weaker moments Melyn could allow himself to think that the beast had simply been lucky, that it had been gliding and caught an updraught strong enough to support its bulk. But he knew he was fooling himself. There was no mistaking those wings, fully ten times the size of any he had seen before. At the speed it had been travelling the creature would be halfway across the Ffrydd in a few hours, a journey that would take his men many weeks, even if he could spare them.
Melyn burned with the need to track down the dragon and kill it, but he knew he would have to wait. The assassination attempt on the queen had changed everything. Now he had to work to keep his anger in check, to concentrate on Beulah’s plans and how best to put them into action.
A knock at the door broke through his musings. Captain Osgal entered on his command, followed by Errol. The boy was still wearing a leather arm guard from archery practice and looked slightly flustered.
‘You wanted to see me, Your Grace,’ he said, bowing.
‘Yes, Errol. Come in. Sit down,’ Melyn said. ‘Stay, Osgal,’ he added as the captain made to leave. ‘You’re a part of this mission too.’
‘Mission?’ Errol asked, and Melyn could feel his excitement rising. He skimmed over the boy’s thoughts, picking images at random. Perhaps unsurprisingly the dragon’s flight was never far from the front, but there were other thoughts too: an insatiable thirst for knowledge, a determination to complete the tasks set for him and a desire to be the top novitiate in his year’s intake. None of the old uncertainties loomed large any mor
e; time and the discipline of the order had pushed them far to the back of his mind.
‘An opportunity has presented itself to put a spy deep in King Ballah’s court,’ Melyn said, catching Errol’s eyes in his gaze. ‘Specifically, we need a young lad who looks and speaks like a native. Can I trust you, Errol Ramsbottom?’
‘What must I do?’ Errol asked, and Melyn could see in his mind a resolve to do the best he possibly could for the order and Queen Beulah. He could see the false memories and ideals now woven so completely into the boy’s psyche as to be real. Melyn had never doubted that his control over the boy would be complete, but it was gratifying nonetheless to see his work bear such useful fruit.
Darkness enveloped Benfro as thousands of tiny twigs snapped and scraped him from head to tip of tail. Larger twigs cracked and jabbed at his scales. At least he had hit the treetop chest on, where his scales were thickest. He tried to cover his head as best he could while the swaying branches caught him, bent and gave. The noise was terrible, as if the very wood were screaming in outrage at his sudden violent arrival. Still he was powerless to do anything but fall, bounce, tumble and break. An unseen hand grabbed at the bag slung around his neck, jerking it so hard he thought it would snap his neck. Instead the branch broke, releasing its loot. Benfro grasped the precious bag under one armpit, reaching out with his other hand to try and grab a passing branch. It stung on contact, burning his palm as it rubbed through, bending almost back on itself before it broke. A thicker branch caught him square on the chest, driving the wind from his lungs and tipping him head over heels so that the next jarring crash was to his back. Pain upon pain greeted every new impact, but he was slowing. He reached out one more time to grab at a branch and this time held on even though it ripped at his torn flesh. The full weight of his momentum transferred to his arm, threatening to wrench it from its socket. Desperate, he flailed his other hand out, grabbed for the branch, held.
Leaves spiralled down into the darkness, their passage lit briefly by sunlight spearing through the great gash in the canopy. Benfro watched them as he desperately tried to catch up with the whirl of events. Somewhere in the back of his mind he could hear a voice counting: ‘Thirty-one, thirty-two, thirty-three.’ He shook his head, trying to get rid of the ringing in his ears and the stars clouding his sight. The branch he was clinging to dipped and swayed alarmingly so he stopped moving.
‘Forty-two, forty-three, forty-four.’ The voice was measured in its beat, implacable, almost hypnotic. Benfro hung from the branch just listening to it and staring down into the darkness.
‘Fifty, fifty-one.’ The murk below began to resolve itself into vague detail as his eyes became accustomed to the darkness and the spots in his vision began to fade. He could not make out the ground, only branches reaching out like great wooden limbs, spindly and malformed in the forest gloom, searching for a small spot where they might thrust a leaf or two into the light. Somewhere a trunk must have risen from the ground, but where it was Benfro couldn’t see.
‘Sixty-four, sixty-five.’ He tried to shuffle his hands along the branch in what he hoped was the right direction. It dipped and wobbled alarmingly, creaks and cracks barking out to be muffled by the surrounding silence. His arms ached with the strain and the ripped palm of his hand hurt with every move. Still he was unsure whether he was going the right way or not, such was the darkness.
‘Eighty-one, eighty-two.’ The branch seemed to be getting thicker, which was good in a way, as it meant he was inching towards the trunk. Benfro knew he could clamber down to the ground if he could just get his footing and rest a while. On the other hand, the thicker branch was more difficult to grasp, and he lacked the strength to haul himself up over it. Pausing to think was not an option, the ache in his arms reaching breaking point. Instead he dug his claws into the soft bark, trying to ignore the pain as they took his weight.
‘Ninety-nine, one hundred, one hundred and one.’ Was that a deeper black in the gloom? Benfro could not be sure. It felt like he was getting close to some massive form: the air seemed stiller, the sound of his laboured breathing more damped. As gently as he could, he felt out with his feet, still clinging to the branch for dear life even though he knew his arms would not last much longer. His claws felt like they were being pulled out by some torturer, and he focused on that pain in the absurd hope that his muscles would not notice their plight. One foot brushed against what felt like a wall, rough and unyielding. It rose vertically to his left, a great nothingness, so close and yet invisible. There was no obvious sign of any other branches within his reach.
‘One hundred and fifteen, one hundred and sixteen.’ Benfro knew it was too late. He would fall now. Heedless of his efforts, his traitorous hands slowly loosened their grip, claws scratching through the soft bark like it was butter. His leaden arms could do nothing.
As he fell, a small measure of triumph lit the otherwise miserable resignation to his fate that flooded through him. He had held on for one hundred and twenty-five seconds, a new record. He didn’t have long to enjoy his success as within seconds of letting go something slammed into him with such force it jarred his spine, cracked his legs and twisted his tail up in an agonizing wrench. Momentum tipped him forward, and in the dazed darkness a faceful of dirt rose to meet him.
‘Lie still now. You don’t want to open the wound up again.’
Beulah pushed the semi-conscious Clun back into the soft mattress of his bed with a firm but gentle hand. He had not woken properly since the attempt on her life, which was perhaps for the best. According to the surgeons, whatever poison the assassin had used to tip his crossbow bolt should have killed him. It would certainly have been fatal to the slighter queen, and only Clun’s unconscious state had kept the toxins from spreading quickly through his bloodstream.
Now it seemed the worst was over. He would survive, but he was going to take a long time healing. Beulah wasn’t quite sure why she had decided to nurse him herself. Perhaps it was his selfless act of sacrifice for her, or maybe she was intrigued by his clearly defined aethereal self-image. Undoubtedly he was a fine specimen of manhood, though she knew all too well how Padraig would react to her forming any kind of liaison with a commoner. On the other hand, she could make him Duke of Abervenn if she wanted to. After all she was queen.
‘He shouldn’t have that. Not here,’ Clun said in a mumbling, indistinct voice that wiped the smile off Beulah’s face. His eyes were still closed in sleep, but his muscles clenched against each other as if he were fighting some invisible foe.
‘Hush now. Sleep,’ Beulah said, wiping the beads of sweat off his forehead with a cool damp rag.
‘But she’s the queen. He mustn’t bring … NO!’ With a great lunge, Clun sat upright, his eyes wide open, his breath coming in ragged gasps. Beulah flinched back from his large hands, but the apparition he grappled with was not her. Slowly the terror in his eyes faded to be replaced with confusion. He dropped his hands to the bedclothes, took in the room, the wide bed and expensive furniture, the tall windows with their silk brocade pelmets and heavy curtains open to show the sunlight in the courtyard, and finally his eyes came to rest on her.
It was cruel to laugh at his reaction, but Beulah couldn’t help herself. At first he scrabbled out of the bed, backing away from her in terror. Then he realized that he was wearing no clothes and a deep flush covered his whole body as he grabbed at the sheets to cover himself. And finally the poison-induced weakness overcame his adrenaline rush and he collapsed to the floor.
It was as well that the noise brought two ladies-in-waiting to the room. Beulah was too busy laughing to notice that the crossbow bolt wound had reopened and Clun was busy bleeding on to the floor. She retreated to the couch beside the window while the women hauled him back into the bed and re-dressed his shoulder. All the while he protested weakly that he shouldn’t be there, that he should be sent back to Emmass Fawr for his training, but he was no match for the two matrons and finally lapsed back into the pillows, defeated.
Beulah waited for her servants to leave, then crossed once more to the bed. Clun had his eyes shut and his face was pale, but his breathing gave away that he was not asleep.
‘You don’t need to fear me,’ Beulah said. ‘And you really must rest.’
‘It’s wrong for me to lie here in the presence of my queen, Your Majesty,’ Clun said, opening his eyes but refusing to meet her gaze.
‘You took a poisoned bolt that was meant for me,’ Beulah said, settling herself once more into the chair beside the bed and taking up the moist cloth. ‘I think I can let you off, just this once.’
She reached out and wiped the sweat from his forehead again. At her touch he flinched and tried to pull away.
‘Am I so awful that you can’t bear even my touch?’ she asked. Finally he looked at her.
‘Your Majesty, no. Of course not. I … It’s just that … well …’
‘You don’t think I should honour the man who saved my life by tending his wounds? Is that it?’
‘Yes, no. I don’t know,’ Clun said. ‘Your Majesty, it’s not right. I’m just a commoner, a novitiate. Not even a warrior priest.’
‘I’m not asking you to marry me,’ Beulah said, noting with satisfaction the flush of embarrassment this brought. ‘And don’t call me “Your Majesty”. It’s too formal. In here, in private, you can call me Beulah.’