Authors: Simon Morden
After a few moments, Stanislav said: ‘Nothing has changed, and now that we know, we can use it to our advantage. If we can get the geomancer before she changes, then we kill both her and the dragon at the same time. We go in hard, all of us. Bring her down. Stop her any way we can.’
‘What if she changes first? What if she’s already changed?’ Dalip looked at his knife. It didn’t seem very big now.
‘Then we have to kill a dragon instead.’
Stanislav had only seen the creature in the distance: he didn’t understand quite how fierce it was, nor how large it was. Some of them were going to die in the fight, and the thought made Dalip hesitate.
‘What does she value most? If we got hold of that, would she negotiate with us?’ He shook the steward. ‘What about him? Does he mean anything to her?’
The serving girl looked as if she was about to faint. ‘I don’t know. I don’t know. She keeps all of her treasure with her.’
‘This discussion is over,’ said Stanislav. ‘We must attack, kill her, escape. It is all we need to understand.’
‘I’m trying to do the right thing here!’ Dalip’s voice started to rise, and he clamped back down on it. ‘There has to be another way.’
‘There is no other way. That much is clear.’
‘Give me some time with her. Ten minutes. Quarter of an hour. I can talk our way out of this, and no one has to fight.’
‘This is foolishness. She will kill you, and she will be warned.’ Stanislav shrugged off Luiza’s hand. ‘I did not think you a coward.’
‘I’m not … Look, she’s not going to kill me if she thinks you’re going to burn her tower down with all her treasure in it. Even if she turns into a dragon and flies away, she can’t carry it with her.’
‘Once she has turned into a dragon, then killing her becomes so much more difficult. She can keep us trapped here until we starve. Or make another mistake such as this one.’
‘I’m not making a mistake. If we rush her, we might win, but we might all get eaten and we’re smarter than that. None of us wants to face a dragon, not if we can help it.’ Dalip pushed the steward in Luiza’s direction. ‘We were told, right at the start, that we could be whatever we wanted to be. We still can. Let me talk to her, tell her we’ve taken her steward and the tower. She’s not stupid.’
‘Evil and intelligent is worse.’
‘Killing her is not our only option.’
‘For God’s sake, Stanislav,’ hissed Elena, ‘let him try.’
Mama nodded. ‘We can fight, but if we didn’t have to …’
‘Make it good,’ said Luiza, and Stanislav could only growl in frustration.
‘This is not the plan.’
‘The plan went out the window when you decided we’d not wait for the next fight. So don’t complain.’ Dalip wrapped his fingers around the knife handle and stepped to the door. ‘I’ll, well. Do my best.’
She flew along the silver length of the river, with the storm chasing her all the way. The wind blustered at her back, and the black line of cloud came at a gallop, pulled in from the wild ocean by white horses.
She didn’t know what she’d do when she got there. There was a dragon, and she would fight it in the sky, while the rain lashed down and the thunder cracked. She would throw it down and feel her beak close on its neck, her head shaking with its death-throes. And then she would … what? What could she do after that? Find her friends and perhaps find a way home.
She thought about that. There was, according to both the wolfman and Crows, no way back to London: but neither of them were the most trustworthy of witnesses, and she’d have to make that judgement for herself, later. The geomancer would have maps of her own they could look at, and once the dragon had gone, she wasn’t going to be able to stop them going through all her things and asking as many questions as they wanted.
She flew low over the trees, the rush of silvery crowns a blur beneath her, the mountain rising ahead of her, split in two by the river gorge. She flew lower, the walls of rock rising up either side in blank-faced slabs and drawing together, until she was forced to twist and turn in the gap, threading her way like a needle through the weft of the landscape.
Then she was out, back into the clear air, with the rising wind under her wings. She banked left, spiralling up, keeping an eye on the castle on the flank of the mountain opposite. Once she’d gained height, she overflew the courtyard. The guards had left the security of their fire, and were all at the door of one of the low buildings, rhythmically hammering a long log into the wood, shouting incoherently at each other.
She dipped her wing and made a tight turn around the main tower, spotting for the first time the balcony cantilevered off the top floor, just below the conical roof. She made another pass and saw that the balcony was not only wide enough to land on, but that a perch – a monstrous perch – had been erected on it.
Twisting in flight, doing a roll so that she could take in all of the darkening sky, she searched in vain for the dragon. But that perch, scratched and worn by long claws, spoke of its existence. It was here, somewhere.
The guards had gained access to the building they’d been trying to break into, stumbling in their haste to push through the doorway and into the room beyond. She watched them disappear, and watched them again as they spilled back out, still shouting. After a moment’s argument, they set off at a lumbering run either towards the tall tower, or to the closest set of gates in the outer wall.
Of course this castle had grown from the ground, just like Crows’ had: it followed that it sat on one of the confluences of energy from the portals, and that the size of it depended on the power of the geomancer and the number of people she could command. Not caring whether the inhabitants were slave or free, Down did the rest.
But she judged that something was seriously wrong below: guards didn’t normally have to force their way into what they guarded, and the tall tower was at the centre of the noise. The gates leading to the mountain lake were closing, and the ones overlooking the valley would be next. She’d not been able to spot an enemy, either single or several, crossing the bare ground before the castle walls. They were under attack, but from within, not without.
As she glided over their heads, two of the men went back to collect their impromptu battering ram. The tower, too, was sealed to them.
Not her, though. She could land and enter: there was still no sign of the dragon, so she decided that it was safe to do so.
It was as she slowed to grasp the perch that one of the guards spotted her and pointed with a shout. Her wings fluttered against the air as she braked, hovering for a moment before closing her claws on the scored wooden bar. There was nothing that they could do to her from down there: if they’d had a gun, or even a bow and arrow, it’d be a different story. Those with the battering ram renewed their efforts. The others, after gawping up at her, pressed their backs close to the tower’s wall in case she swooped at them.
The doors in front of her needed hands to open properly. She leant forward to peck at them, her sharp beak rattling the bolts. That didn’t work, but there were other ways to get in. She started a more concerted jabbing and scratching as she tried to break her way through. Every time she pushed, the crack between the doors widened, and she could see flickers of what was inside: a splash of red, a line of silver, something deep green. She kept on, battering at the doors, using her size and her lightning-fast kicks to weaken the fastenings.
And all of a sudden, they gave, and the doors swung open, banging against their jambs. Her keen eyes noted all the places inside the room within – bed, table, wall-hangings, boxes, wood, brass, bone, cloth, light, shadow – and finally rested on the woman standing in the centre, leaning heavily on a stick.
She was dressed in white and gold, her skirts down to the floor, her sleeves as far as her hands. Almost weddingy, but her expression – her whole purple-bruised and black-blooded cut face – held no celebration.
‘Have you come for me?’ asked the woman.
Mary’s gaze skittered behind her to the intricate metal machines set up on benches around the circumference of the room, and didn’t answer. She turned her head in short, sharp jerks to take it all in.
‘What are you waiting for?’ The woman’s voice was sharp, used to being obeyed. Mary knew the type. Her neck feathers prickled.
She could just about squeeze in. She’d be at a sudden, and huge, disadvantage. No room to stretch her wings, her head forced against the ceiling, difficult to raise her talons in front of her. Difficult to leave in a hurry, too. The boom-boom-boom echoing up the tower told her that the guards hadn’t broken in yet, but also that it was only a matter of time until they did.
She had cunning, both as a hawk, and as a veteran of the care system. So no, she wasn’t going to do what the woman wanted. She’d stay outside and keep watch for the dragon. She had almost turned away, when unexpected movement caught her attention. There was a hole in the floor, surrounded by what she’d thought was an odd metal cage, but now she could see was a curving banister.
A dark mass of long black wavy hair, the hint of an orange collar. He was facing away, then slowly, slowly, his head came around to reveal his face.
It took her a moment to recognise him. It was a longer moment than it took for him to gasp, and longer still than him spotting a massive bird of prey peering intently at him from the broken balcony doors. That the geomancer stood between them, her back to him, was mostly lost as mere detail.
The geomancer turned as quickly as her injuries would allow, and Dalip stayed where he was on the staircase, his empty hands raised.
‘You.’
‘Yes,’ he said. His gaze left Mary, alighted on the geomancer, then was back on the bird. Which had gone, and only the coffee-coloured girl remained.
‘And me,’ she said.
The geomancer was confronted front and back.
‘Mary?’ said Dalip.
‘It’ll take too long to explain. Is everyone else all right?’
‘They’re downstairs. If the guards get in, then … I don’t know.’
‘Then she has to call them off.’
‘She’s only going to do that if we threaten to hurt her.’
The geomancer banged her stick against the floor. ‘Stop discussing me like I wasn’t here. You – you are my slave, and you – I should have killed you on the mountain-top while I had the chance.’
‘I refuse to be your slave.’
‘And …’ Mary frowned. ‘You weren’t on the mountain-top.’
‘You silly little girl. Are you really that stupid?’
‘Fuck you,’ was her automatic response. ‘And fuck your wolfman, too. You’re shits, the pair of you.’
The geomancer lurched towards Mary, raising her stick to strike that foul mouth. She staggered as she swung, and she fell against a bench, upsetting the delicate brass instrument on it. It teetered for a moment, and she scrabbled to save it, all thought of violence lost.
The effort left her sprawled on the ground at Mary’s feet. Mary looked down at her trying to rise, and she realised what the pattern of cuts and bruises meant.
‘You’re the—’
‘Dragon,’ said Dalip. ‘One of the servants told us. But you, you’re a …’ He flapped his arms uselessly. ‘You’re a bird.’
‘Yes, I am, when I want to be.’
‘You’re also not very dressed.’ He shook his head to clear his mind. ‘How do we prevent her from turning?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t think we can. Perhaps I hurt her badly enough to stop her, for a bit.’ Mary snatched the geomancer’s stick away. It didn’t seem like it was a magic wand, or wizard’s staff, like she’d seen in films, but there was no point in risking it. It might just be a smoothed length of wood, but it might be as lethal as a loaded gun.
‘You did this to her? How?’
‘I came to find you, see if I could sneak into the castle and get you all out. She came at me as the dragon, tried to kill me.’ Thinking about it, even though she’d been utterly desperate and out of her depth, she’d been brave and resourceful, and in the end, despite her injuries, she’d won. Her chin came up. ‘I still beat her.’
The geomancer hung on to the edge of the table and pulled herself up. The brass thing rattled and rolled.
‘You were lucky.’
‘I beat your arse good and proper. Now, call off the heavies.’
‘That would be very stupid of me. And I’m not stupid.’
‘Dalip,’ said Mary. ‘You should leave.’
Everything close by that was loose, started to hum, chatter or buzz.
‘Mary, what are you doing?’
‘Finishing what I started.’
‘We can’t fight everyone.’
‘We don’t have to. We just need to fight her, and the whole place falls apart. Isn’t that right, your ladyship? This castle wasn’t built by you. Down gave it to you, and it can take it away just as easily.’
‘Mary, what are you talking about?’
‘She knows. She knows exactly what I’m talking about.’
‘Oh, I know far more than you do, girl. You caught me off guard before: not now. I know how to deal with you this time.’
‘You threw everything you had at me and you fucked up.’ Mary
was still holding the stick, and she swung it at the geomancer’s head.
The blow was blocked by the sudden interposition of the same brass apparatus that the geomancer had gone to all the trouble of saving minutes before. Rather than a skull being cracked, it was metal that bent and twisted.
It fell, broken, between them.
Then it was the geomancer’s turn. After the first flung object came from behind Dalip and nearly took his head off on its way to bludgeon Mary, he ducked back down into the stairwell.
Mary squared up for the fight. She dodged the jar easily – its arrival had been telegraphed for longer than a drunken punch outside a kebab shop – and heaved the now-empty table up to be her shield.
The wood shuddered and groaned, and the legs scraped towards her. The impacts came regularly, a continual barrage of heavy concussions that was going to leave nothing in the room intact. She knew that this was treasure the geomancer was wasting, destroying it all in an attempt to destroy her, but also to deny it to her when Mary inevitably triumphed.
She let her pound the table for a few moments longer, crouching behind it as debris exploded in cogs and dust, then retreated a little way. She took a step to the side, then another, and blindly, everything was still directed at the table, taking the brunt of the geomancer’s fury.
Quickly, quietly, she skipped across the room. She hadn’t done so much physical activity as this since she’d faced the dragon: the cuts on her back and the bruises in her flesh dragged and ached as she ran and jumped up on the big bed, leaping down on the other side. Something sailed past her ear, fast and bright, but it was only passing.
She thought she should have a weapon of some sort, but even then, it wasn’t very street. She’d settle this like a true Londoner, with fists and feet and nails and teeth. As the geomancer orchestrated her destructive volleys like a demented conductor, Mary came up behind her and threw herself at her back, pulling at the wild blonde hair with one hand, and clawing at her face with the other.
Mary’s knees punched down, and the geomancer went over. Her face smacked the floor, and there was a spray of blood, thick and red, across the stone flags. Oh, Mary knew how to do this, savage and relentless and utterly without mercy, yanking handfuls of hair and battering her face, half-letting her up only to shove her back down and keep going. There was no one to intervene: no police or social workers or care home staff to drag her away, trailing scraps of skin and cloth, to be forced into some Home Office-approved restraining position until she’d calmed down; not even other kids who’d cheer her on for the first few minutes and end up pulling at her arms because she was taking it just too far.
She could keep on until she’d reduced her opponent to bloody ruin and beyond.
‘Mary. Mary.’
She slowed, and then stopped. Something heavy – one of the wall coverings, thick and rich – draped over her shoulders, and she was gently guided aside. She sat with her back against one of the bed posts, while Dalip peered uncertainly at the geomancer.
‘You’ve,’ he said, dry-mouthed. ‘I mean, she’s really …’
‘I know,’ said Mary, and pulled the covering tighter. ‘What were you going to do?’
‘I don’t know. I talked Stanislav out of just killing her. I wanted to see if I could,’ he shrugged, and his hands fluttered, ‘reason with her.’
The geomancer covered her ruined face with her ragged hands, and wept. Dalip clearly had no idea what to do and, if she was honest, neither did Mary.
This was the woman who, a couple of nights ago, tried to cut her into strips with her sharp teeth and sharper claws. This was the woman who had turned her friends into slaves, and she didn’t know how that had gone: Dalip had clearly been changed by his experiences, because the shy, uncertain engineering student was nowhere to be seen. This was the woman who had forced Crows’ villagers out of their homes and staked out this part of Down as her personal kingdom, making a claim on everyone and everything in it.