The Dragon Engine (16 page)

“It is Wyrmblood,” croaked Skathos, palpitations racing through his pounding heart. “The lost city of the dragons.”

T
he company rode
north through the White Lane during the morning, and Beetrax rode at the rear, axe out in one scarred fist, constantly looking over his shoulder and squinting through the light falling of peppered snow. Three times more they had heard the mournful wail; like a song from some terrible demon crying for its lost love.

It made them all shiver.

And one thing was certain. Whatever it was, it was getting gradually closer.

The ground had started to rise, and as the afternoon wore on, the valley, or road, known as the White Lane came to an end. They dismounted, and each shouldered packs and slapped horses into a gallop back the way they had come.

“Goodbye, Bella,” said Beetrax sombrely.

“You love that horse, don't you?” grinned Talon, although his eyes were narrowed, and he appeared strained with tension.

“More than you.” Beetrax gave a death's-head grin. “Keep that bow strung. I worry we may need your skills sooner than I anticipated.”

Jael shouldered a light pack, claiming he was feeling strong enough for the climb. Beetrax shook his head.
It would have been better to leave the lad behind, back at the forest. Now what horse shit has he got himself into?

All members of the company pulled on hats, and stared up at the steep trail ahead. It was formed, at this point, from slabs of stone, working its way via switchbacks up the steep slope ahead of them. The slabs were treacherous with ice, and Beetrax gestured to Dake, who nodded, and set off up the stone ramp.

Jonti followed him, then Sakora, Jael and Lillith, with Talon staying at the rear alongside Beetrax.

They trudged up the pathway, legs burning at this sudden increase in ascent. It was steep. Near as steep as a man could comfortably walk without resorting to scrambling. Within minutes Beetrax felt his lungs burning and he cursed his lack of fitness. It wasn't like this in his younger days, when he could drink all night, shag all morning, then run up a mountain and still have strength to wrestle at the top.
Ach. Those were the days.

Talon walked beside him for a while. The climb was having little effect on the effete archer.

“You struggling, old man?”

“I am
one
year older than you.
One fucking year
.”

“Granted,” said Talon, “however, your
fitness
is fifty years older than I. Why did you let yourself get so out of shape?”

“Fuck off, will you?” he wheezed.

Ahead, Sakora said to Jael, “See how your famous axeman suffers?” She gestured back, to where Beetrax was now red in the face, brow dripping sweat, shirt soaked.

Jale shrugged. “He is still my hero,” he said, simply.

They climbed for two hours, and cliffs dropped away beneath them so the ridgelines of the land began to open up, the landscape, the world, unfolding like some vast and breathtaking map. They paused for a breather, to drink water and eat a hurried snack of dried beef strips.

Beetrax dropped to a rock and struggled out of his pack. He took off his furry hat and ran hands through his sweat-streaked hair. Jonti moved to him, offering water.

“You all right, Trax?”

“Yes,” he snapped.

“You sure?” asked Dake, chewing on a strip of beef, and grinning over at Talon who was inspecting his shafts, checking them for true.

“Will everybody stop bloody asking me how I am, right? Yes, Beetrax the Axeman has put on a bit of weight. Yes, Beetrax the Axeman has not been running for the past few years, and now has the stamina of a little girl. And yes, Beetrax the Axeman is suffering like a fat raw recruit on the climb. But what I'd like you all to do is
fuck off
, and let me suffer in peace, and stop grinning at me before I lose my temper and knock out some teeth, like.”

Lillith hurried over, and sat beside him. She looked into his eyes, and stroked back his hair. “Remember? What you said?”

Beetrax stared at her. Angry. Then subsided. Meek. “Yes. Right. Sorry. I'll… try.” The last word was from behind gritted teeth.

Talon and Dake exchanged a glance, wide-eyed. A glance that said,
didn't expect that to happen? Where did that intimacy come from?

When Beetrax had regained his breath, he clambered up a large, cubic rock and stood, hands on hips, gazing down into the valley they had so recently vacated. The snow had abated for a while, and his eyes tracked the path they had climbed, zigzagging up the side of… he searched his memories for the name.
Talkanoth.
The first, modest peak of the Karamakkos, and the initial summit they would have to breach in order to cross the Ice Bridges of Sakaroth. That path would then lead them deep into the Karamakkos – and towards the ancient, deserted lair of the Harborym Dwarves.

Beetrax followed the White Lane with his eyes. He could just distinguish the old barracks where they had slept, and then his gaze travelled further south. But he could see nothing; no enemies, no mud-orcs, no…
creatures
of the night.

Talon climbed up beside him, and slapped him on the back.

“Any monsters?”

“None I can see.”

“Relax, Axeman! Even if it
was
a splice, which I very much doubt, as King Yoon had them all hunted down by the Iron Wolves and killed, even
if it was a splice
, why would it be hunting us? It's just as likely to eat our horses. Yes?”

“I have a bad feeling.”

“Ha! I'd forgotten this about you, Beetrax. Everything is a bad feeling; every fallen tree is the gods trying to scupper your plans. Every raven is a promise of death, every swollen river an attempt to get between you and your gold. I
remember
. Shit. How did I ever forget that?” He looked incredulous.

“No, Talon, you heard the sound. The wail. That was a splice.”

“I'm not so sure. I've drank a lot of wine since back then. And
you've
drank way too much brandy.”

“So, what was it then?” Beetrax wore his famous scowl.

“I don't know.”

“Exactly! You don't know!”

Talon yawned. “Listen, you're jumping at shadows. I didn't appreciate being rolled from my bloody bed at the crack of dawn by a raving lunatic gabbling on about bloody horse monsters; and I don't appreciate you pushing this hectic pace – a pace, I might add, you can't keep up with due to your ever-expanding ale gut – when we were supposed to be on a more…
relaxed
outing.”

Dake shouted up, “Talon! Leave the big man alone. He needs to get his breath back.”

“Yes, sir!” Talon saluted, a smart military
snap
, and climbed back down the big cube, leaving Beetrax alone and muttering and scanning the trails, eyes sweeping back and forth like a madman; a man possessed.

“I know what I heard,” he mumbled, and scratched his beard, brows furrowed. “I bloody know what I heard.”

D
arkness started
to fall as the company neared the summit of Talkanoth. The air was curiously alien and still, and with altitude the temperature had dropped to a brittle chill which numbed fingers. The path erupted upwards from a narrow fissure filled with a silver, frozen stream, in which they had to kick steps. It was a long, laborious process, but the ice was too slippery to climb. At the top of the ice stream, the path suddenly opened into a broad mountain-top plateau, a virgin snow sheet of purest white, peppered by several modest boulders. Beside one such boulder there was an old cairn, and a shelter built from rocks carried up by soldiers training for the Vagandrak Army over a period of years during decades past. The shelter's original function had been that of life-saver for soldiers lost on the mountain; a shelter to hide within during a sudden storm. Now, it served Beetrax and the others as a place to camp for the night – and they were very thankful of its simple, thick stone walls.

There was no wood for a fire, but each made a space for their blankets on the hard-packed earth. There was a narrow aperture for a doorway, and no windows; that would defeat the object. But as darkness flooded the summit of the mountain, and stars twinkled high above, shimmering and hazy, so Beetrax stepped outside and breathed deep the fresh mountain oxygen.

Sakora prepared a cold meal for the group, grumbling about the lack of a fire and how this was no way to live, and they huddled together, the temperature within the small space rising due to their combined body heat. They were eventually able to remove hats and gloves, but not much else.

“It's going to be a long cold night,” said Beetrax, squeezing back through the entrance.

“I'm sure we can find a way to keep warm,” said Lillith, voice soft, her eyes meeting Beetrax's.

Jael sat, a bowl on his knee, looking around the group, picking idly at the dried beef, sliced cheese and black bread. His mind was still spinning at the coincidence of it all; at the sheer...
adventure
.

Only days earlier his village had been attacked by bandits. The memories seemed distant and unreal, as if he had endured a bad dream. He shook his head, looking down into his bowl, and tears formed in his eyes, running down his cheeks…

Bandits!

Taylan, his father, ran from their cottage carrying his wood-chopping axe, but the attack came fast, and the lead bandit reared his mount, steel hooves pawing the air, then Taylan's chest and face. He hit the ground, bloodied and unconscious. Jael watched from the window with the potted purple flowers, mouth open, as the horse reared again, hooves coming down to crush his father's head.
No
, screamed Jael, running outside and everything was a sudden blur, moving through treacle, leaving smears through the air, and arrows were whistling through the village, punching men and women, even children, from their feet. A club whistled from behind, cracking Jael on the head and he went down like a sack of shit, mind reeling, and watching from the mud as his sister, sweet Alina, peeped from the doorway and a bandit dismounted, grabbing her roughly, forcing her down onto the ground where his hand grabbed between her legs and she suddenly started screaming, kicking, and the bandit punched her into silence. His mother came out bearing a bread knife, blade silver and gleaming, hand-sharpened, and as the bandit mounted the young girl, the knife slammed into his back between his shoulder blades and he went suddenly rigid, slumping forward. An arrow slashed through the air, taking his mother in the throat. Both hands came up, clasping the shaft in disbelief, and Jael watched as blood bubbled around the wound and she opened her mouth and frothing blood came out. She dropped to her knees, then toppled to her side, and Jael looked into her dead eyes and knew that the world was going to end, knew that nothing would ever be the same again. It went on. And on. The killing. The rape. And then fire, flames taking to thatch in seconds, the roar of fire demons striding through the village, the laughter of the bandits as they loaded stolen wares onto their horses and a broad cart. Then words. As he drifted into a well of despair. Here... we have a live one. Let's keep him for a little entertainment after supper
!
Laughter. Cruel laughter. Movement. Travel. Slumped over a horse. Then tied roughly to a tree. He struggled, and a big shape moved in, fists pounding his face and ribs. More laughter. He hung against his bonds, hands numb, ribs on fire, and vomited onto the needles of the forest floor as he felt completely useless, completely worthless. Time passed. He did not know how much. But one thing he did know: he was going to die there, tied like a pig to a tree. Die, just like his father, just like his mother, just like little Alina.

Then the trees moved. Branches creaked. A man walked from the forest, a big man, carrying an axe.

You all right lads?

What do you want?

The words drifted to Jael like a dream, and despite his pain, he struggled to open his eyes because suddenly, as adrenaline kicked through him, he realised this was not a dream. This was real. And the man was Beetrax the Axeman, subject of so many stories, poems and books. Beetrax! The Hero of Desekra! Jael reeled, lounging against his bonds, and he knew they thought him unconscious but he could hear, and see, and taste the fear of the bastard brigands who had brought misery to his entire fucking world.

Who's that?

None of your business.

Do you know who I am?

Amaze me.

I am Beetrax the Axeman.

Never heard of you. All I see is a fat old man with broken teeth and a ginger beard that needs a trim. Now fuck off, before we fill you full of arrows.

Old man, is it?

And then the scene surged into violence, and the others from legend were there, real as stone, killing the evil bandits in the blink of an eye. Just like heroes. Just like the heroes from his story books.

They saved my life
, he realised
.

And now I am with them, on their next adventure. Their next legend.

Jael dried his tears on his sleeve, and settled his mind, and ate his food. Then he looked up, in that cold shelter, surrounded by the heroes of his childhood, and he took a deep breath.

“I would like to thank you all,” he said.

“Aye, lad?” said Beetrax.

“That's good of you,” said Dake, kindly, and reached forward, patting Jael's arm.

“I mean…” he stumbled, and reddened in the darkness. “I mean, for saving me. Sparing my life. I'm nothing but a humble village woodcutter, and I suffered a great injustice; but then, then… to be rescued! By such amazing heroes!”

“It was nothing,” said Sakora, kindly. She reached forward and took his hands in her own. She was surprisingly warm. “We are just human, you know? Just like you. And when Talon scouted ahead, and discovered you were being tortured by those brigand bastards, it was something we had to do. We couldn't allow you to suffer like that. We had to take steps against the evil strong.”