After the Dragon

by Wendy Palmer

  They stared, the DarkElf, the LightElf, as the blood ran down her hand and fell in droplets to the ground, to mingle with the water and mud. Only then did Mizzle draw her swords, crying out, ‘Gekizou,’ that DarkElvish word springing her swords to full size, one of the few magics she didn't need the DarkStone for.

  Trick got back to his feet and got between them again, this time protecting the life of the LightElf and Mizzle's soul.

  He faced her with his arms outspread, wordless and waiting for her to finally strike him down.

  She came close to doing it, he believed, the blades trembling in the air in front of him. This was how San must have felt, in those last moments of his life.

  But Mizzle walked from the clearing, and Faustus went after her.

  Trick looked over his shoulder at the LightElf and realised she would not follow them. She had sagged back against the tree, face deadly pale. Trick hurried to catch up with the others.

  Mouse waited at the edge of the forest with the horses. They mounted and rode back through the village and out the gate. The rain was just as heavy but the thunder had moved on. Trick led them east to reach the river, and then turned them south again along the bank. In some places the path was flooded but Mizzle simply forced Skye through, splashing onward where Trick baulked and thought to find a different path.

  They rode unspeaking until evening, when the rain finally stopped, leaving the world glistening, dripping, flowing in its wake. Then Mizzle reined Skye to a hard halt and looked back at them.

  'You were right,’ she said to Trick. ‘They will never accept me.'

  He opened his mouth to deny he had ever said such a thing, but of course he had and she had a DarkElvish memory that would not let either of them forget. He had no comfort for her.

  She ripped shreds off her cloak and wrapped them round and round her wounded hand while Faustus said, ‘They won't all be like that. They'll listen.'

  Mizzle just looked at him, drawing silence around her like a cloak. She was shaking and angry and Trick was amazed she had not fallen back to using the DarkStone to control herself. She was stronger than him, if he had ever had reason to doubt it.

  The next morning, Mizzle led them onwards along the river while he consulted his stolen map, peeling the damp leaves open and trying to see past the smudged ink to the paths into Wyvern Forest. They would follow this river until it reached the coast, and then turn true south to strike for the mighty Wyvern River, the path deep into LightElf territory.

  He did not think they would make it so far before the LightElves came down on them. Even now, that young LightElvish female must be slipping south on secret paths known only to her people while they went the long and obvious route. Perhaps the LightElves would send the Kiara Valley Rangers to take them to the human settlement so Wyvern would not have to bear the touch of a DarkElf.

  Trick shivered. What would the LightElves do to Mizzle's human allies? Once he would have embraced death, throwing himself on their swords. Now, he could step between the swords of Mizzle and the LightElf and still not know for sure what he wanted. His father had not died for his mother? Should he then not want to die for Linnet? Her soft voice still called for him.

  The last thing she had ever asked of him before she died was not to leave her alone. But he had insisted on going and came back to devastation. Now all she ever asked was for him not to leave her alone, her constant whisper in his ear. Except that wasn't her. Linnet could not be such a monster. It was he, himself, who lent the monster.

  His thoughts were interrupted as they crested a rise. A lake spread out before them, covering the way forward, where a valley had been on the map. Trick looked across the lake, shading his eyes out of habit, and thought he could make out a great wall. Someone had dammed the river and drowned the valley.

  He shrugged and turned away. A faint trail wound around the edges, hazardous for the horses in the aftermath of the storm, slippery and debris-strewn, but not impassable.

  But Mizzle dismounted. She too stared out over the lake, but she looked not to the other side. Rather, her gaze seemed to be directed to the middle of the lake, where the tops of a stand of trees broke above water.

  She waded into the water, fully clothed. Not that it mattered; they were all already sodden.

  Faustus swung off his horse after her but stopped after splashing a few paces into the lake.

  Mizzle walked out waist-high before suddenly diving into the water.

  Faustus tried to follow her again. Trick leapt off Bet to pull him back.

  They sat on wet grass to wait for Mizzle, while the horses grazed around them and Mouse went splashing off for all the world as he if were a normal little boy playing.

  After a time, Faustus said, ‘Do you think she misses him?'

  Trick guessed he meant Jarrett. ‘She's a DarkElf,’ he said. ‘They don't get attached like humans do.'

  'She's half-human, though, isn't she?'

  Faustus surprised him. He had come to the same conclusion Trick had.

  Trick was moved to be kind. ‘I'm sorry, Faustus. She can't love you.'

  Faustus jerked to his feet and walked away from where Mouse played.

  A flash of movement caught Trick's eye. He looked across the water and saw Mizzle reach the drowned trees in the middle of the lake.

  Another figure greeted her. Understanding dawned. A grove of Dryads was drowned in this valley. Mizzle swam out for survivors, and found one. He looked harder. Some kind of exchange was taking place. Mizzle accepted something from the Dryad, then the Dryad leant forward and kissed her on the lips.

  Trick averted his eyes. The Dryads were a secretive race. He had no wish to intrude on one of their ceremonies, especially if they were among the few Ancients inclined to be friendly towards Mizzle. But this noble impulse warred with base curiosity. He had never seen a Dryad. He had not even realised their trees could thrive north of Wyvern. He wanted to look.

  Just as he had convinced himself it would be safe to steal another look, Trick caught something from the edge of his eye again and glanced that way. Nothing moved, just ripples across the surface of the lake. He blinked and looked back in time to see Mizzle half-fall into the water. The Dryad had vanished.

  He jumped to his feet. She was swimming back, her stroke languid and erratic. The damn Dryad had taken strength from her, more than she could afford to spend.

  Faustus had seen too, had already flung off his boots and cloak. He threw himself into the water with a great splash. Trick waited, watching. Once more he caught movement at the far corner of his vision and spun in time to see Mouse leap back from the edge of the lake. A dark shape disappeared back under the water.

  DarkElves haunted the lake and Mizzle swam, exhausted and unaware. There was no expanse of stone or masonry here to set her DarkStone to throbbing in warning. He shouted out, but neither Faustus nor Mizzle gave any sign they'd heard him. He dived into the water and started swimming out to them.

  Something brushed against his leg and he stopped, treading water, trying to see into the black depths. Fortune's eyes, they were under there, their hands reaching to drag him down. In front of him, he saw Faustus stop abruptly and look down. Then Mizzle disappeared, yanked under the water.

  Both he and Faustus cried out. Faustus swam wildly towards where she had been, but Trick turned back to shore, slipping as quietly as he could through the water, hardly daring to kick in case he reminded the DarkElves he was there.

  Mouse helped him ashore, slipping in the mud, making the boy as wet and dirty as he was. He looked back and saw that Faustus too had given up and was coming in. The three of them stood on the shore and looked over the lake.

  Not a sound, not a ripple, gave any indication of where Mizzle was. Trick's mind's eye saw her lying on the bottom of the lake, her face paler than it had ever been, black hair rippling like seaweed. He saw the DarkElves dragging her out the other side of the lake with their cruel knives at her throat.

  But nothing showed her u
ltimate fate.

  Faustus gave a hoarse cry, tears streaming down his face. Trick turned away. Then Mouse grabbed his sleeve in that firm insistent way he had and made him face the lake again.

  A head broke surface, black hair plastered sleek as an otter's, eyes closed. He was for a moment sure they had waited too long and the DarkElves had come back for them. Then she opened her eyes and the silver flashed at them.

  'Mizzle,’ cried Faustus and waded out to her. She struggled in towards him, and he got her by the arm and helped her in.

  She fell to her knees as they got close to the shore and Trick and Mouse went out to help drag her to shore, leaving a groove in the mud and covering themselves in it and in blood which came from cuts on her shoulders and leg.

  She shook them off as they reached the grass, crawling away from them and the lake. ‘Do not touch the water,’ she said. She lay down then, with the blood leaking from her fingers where her ragged bandage had come loose, and from her shoulders and the great gash in her leg. ‘Stay away from it.’ She had the DarkStone in her hands. It sparked into life, a great red flash of light that reflected the red-stained water flowing off her.

  Faustus ran to her side. Trick got her salve from her saddlebag and brought it over. He took off his cloak and ripped it into strips, then covered some of the rags with the salve and got Faustus to hold them as padding against the wounds while he bound them with more rags.

  She lay as if unconscious.

  As he finished, Mouse tugged at him again and he turned to see fish floating to the surface of the lake, a deathly silver shoal reflecting back at the grey-black clouds overhead. Fish, and other dead things. Mizzle had used the DarkStone against the entire of the lake, for their safety and her own.

  He could not believe they were safe. Surely some, Mizzle's mother among them, had swum for shore as soon as Mizzle got away from them, knowing the power of the stone and Mizzle's ruthlessness. He leant over her, meaning to pick her up and carry her to the horses, but she sat up.

  Trick jerked backwards, almost falling.

  She levered herself up with one hand and limped over to Skye, mounting without a word. The three of them followed. She sent the mare off at a reckless gallop. Trick did not want to force Bet to keep up with her, but he did.

  They rode that faint path to the far side of the lake.

  On several occasions, the horses slipped or skidded, but each time they regained their balance and ran on.

  Finally, they came to the wall that had dammed the river and drowned the valley.

  Here the path climbed steeply, going over the shoulder of the pass past the wall rising high above their heads. Mizzle forced Skye upwards but the mare baulked and curved along the side and down again. Trick dismounted, took Bet's reins and Skye's, and led the two horses up. Faustus followed suit with Coal.

  Trick, glancing back, saw that Mizzle leant forward, collapsed across the saddle and Skye's neck. The boneless way she flopped there chilled him.

  As soon as they crested the shoulder, he dropped Bet's reins so she and Mouse could find their own way down, and fell back to walk beside Skye.

  'What that Dryad took from you,’ he said in Mizzle's ear as she lolled against Skye's neck. ‘Can you take it from me?'

  Mizzle's eyes opened and she stared at him. She nodded, but said, ‘I will not.'

  'You need to,’ he said. He did not say You're dying but he thought she could read it in his eyes.

  She placed her wounded hand on the back of his neck as he walked beside her horse. The makeshift bandage was already soaked with her blood and he felt a rivulet run down his back.

  Then she said, ‘No,’ and took her hand away.

  He did not argue. He met Mouse and Faustus with the other two horses on the riverbed—muddy from the rain but an easier path to travel than the narrow slippery path along the bank. He swung back up on Bet in front of Mouse and he and Faustus rode on either side of Skye.

  Trick rode close, expecting at any moment that Mizzle would fall.

  But she didn't and eventually he decided to believe they were far enough away to stop and light a fire and try to get dry.

  He gathered up wood and got the fire lit while Faustus and Mouse eased Mizzle off Skye and laid her down on sodden blankets. Faustus would not move from her side but Mouse helped Trick tend to the horses.

  He did not think it mattered now if they went unsaddled. Mizzle could not run, not even if the Dark himself marched around the bend in the riverbed.

  The walls of the bank sloped high above them, sheltering them from the wind. A few spots of rain hissed into the fire. Trick knelt next to Mizzle and checked her bandages. By all the Gods, the DarkElves had cut her deep and she yet bled.

  Trick could think of nothing he could do for her, but build up the fire and make her eat. She sat up when he urged it, sitting close to the fire and taking the roasted meat he forced into her hands.

  She said, ‘Faustus, bring my bag.'

  Faustus hurried over to the packs.

  As soon as his back was turned, Mizzle swayed forward and kissed Trick, just lightly, just gently.

  He felt only a slight dizziness, but she sat back with that deathly pall lifted from her face.

  He exchanged a startled look with Mouse to check he had not dreamt it.

  Mizzle ate the meat and got them to boil up a mixture of herbs and powders from her bag, which smelt awful but she drank it all.

  Finally, Faustus dared ask, ‘What did the Dryad take from you?'

  'She needed strength to perform a last act of revenge,’ said Mizzle. ‘I gave of myself, for she shunned the DarkStone.'

  Trick had to wonder if Mizzle took that hint. ‘You poisoned the water, did that not kill her?'

  'I did not poison the water,’ she said. ‘I—put the essence of the lightning into it. It did not harm her.'

  'Revenge on who?’ asked Faustus. ‘The dam builders?'

  'She cannot reach the builders,’ said Mizzle. ‘She will act against the dam itself.'

  Her eyes opened and she sat up fully. She only now realised where they sat, Trick realised. He hauled Mouse up and shouted, ‘Go, up.'

  Mizzle had already got to her feet, moving on that wounded leg with precarious balance and none of her usual grace. Faustus grabbed her arm and helped her, and she did not shake him off. Behind them, Trick heard a crack like thunder and knew the water was coming.

  He took a last precious moment to let loose the tethers of the horses and chased after them up the bank. Mouse was almost to the top, Faustus and Mizzle scant feet behind.

  He risked a glance and saw the water coming. Their tiny fire winked out in less than a heartbeat as the mighty wave crashed over it. He lunged up; he just had time enough to make it to safety.

  Then, suddenly, Faustus fell behind Mizzle, turned and shoved him in the chest. Trick, gaping at his cousin's wrenched, grimacing face, slid back.

  The water took him.

  Chapter Thirteen

  'Fiancée, I see,’ Jacoby says. She reclines on her bed, lazily amused and dangerous.

  Kintore stands in the doorway. ‘Understand LightElvish, wife of the Dark?'

  'We learn it,’ says Jacoby. A small red mark mars her smooth beauty where the iron bar struck her. ‘As you learn DarkElvish. The two languages are not so very different.'

  He dares to sit beside her. ‘An arranged marriage only.'

  'If she dies on her way back to Wyvern?’ Kintore folds his arms. A smile touches her face and is gone. ‘A treaty with the Ullwyns,’ she says.

  'An excuse to stay.'

  'A necessary excuse.’ Jacoby glances askance at him. ‘The king of Bourchia has demigods now. Does he still need the LightElves?'

  Kintore crooks his knee up and rests his chin on it. His elbow brushes her. ‘All he needs is the threat.'

  'Bourchia will win its independence.'

  'Yes,’ says Kintore.

  'And Livania must ally with the LightElves if Ardmore and Bourchia h
ave.'

  Kintore hunches into himself. ‘Yes.'

  'You hardly need the iron.'

  Kintore raises his head and looks at her where she lies on the bed. ‘We are both a diminishing people, ‘Coby. We do not ally with humans to fight DarkElves but to protect ourselves.'

  'I cannot agree with the strategy or the innocence of the motives. We retreat from the humans.'

  Kintore reaches out a slow hand and caresses her cheek. ‘Our child will vindicate one of us.'

  Jacoby catches his hand and kisses his palm. She uses his arm to lever herself up, and kisses his shoulder, his mouth, and then, gently, his forehead. ‘We will never meet again.'

  Kintore pulls her onto his lap. ‘Come with the child.'

  'I have already promised to send you one fiend. Do not ask for two.'

  ''Coby,’ says Kintore. ‘Come and I will see you welcomed among us.'

  She looks him in the eye. ‘LightElves have a word for love, do they not?'

  * * * *

  Trick had no time to spare a thought for the others, pushed under and choking in cold smothering blankets, rolled over and over in the water. His lungs took fire, his arm tore against something, and his head hit rock. Ignoring the explosion of pain, he got his arms up and wrapped around the rock, caught hold and hauled himself towards air.

  His head broke above the roaring torrent and he breathed in tearing gasps, holding to the rock until its sharp edges cut his fingers open. At last the waters began to subside and he found the strength to pull himself to the bank and clear of the current.

  He sat in the mud, shivering in his wet clothes, touching his scalp with bloody hands. He had escaped with a shallow gash to his head, cuts in his fingers, and a deep gouge across his upper arm.

  Luck, he named it, and got himself up. He walked back up the river, hoping not to find what he was looking for. He saw no footprints, no horses, no sign of anyone, until he came round a bend and saw the black-haired black-clothed shape lying on the bank.

  For a moment, it filled all Trick's vision and he staggered. He made himself walk closer, his feet scraping in the mud, dragging step after step. Only as he knelt beside the body and started to turn it over, dread filling his throat so he couldn't breathe again, did he remember that Mizzle wore grey.