“Hold on, Captain!” Jamie shouted as Lyco staggered towards the barbican.
“Jamie!” A strangled voice shrieked in terror. He spun round. It was Hedden. His fellow squire was under a ferocious attack from a Guthani with an axe and shield. Jamie wanted to help the Captain, but Hedden was no match for the Guthlander he was up against. Cursing, Jamie fought his way through the press toward his fellow squire. Just as he reached him, the hirth beat down Hedden’s defence and hacked him in the gut. Hedden fell.
Jamie bellowed and launched a flurry of savage blows at the Guthlander. She stumbled back, her guard dropped. Jamie brought his sword down against her shoulder, smashing bones and sending brass scales flying from her hauberk. She fell. Jamie brought his sword up and round in a slashing arc and split her skull. He wrenched the shield from her arm and slung it over his back before dragging Hedden towards the barbican. The squire was screaming, trying to hold his guts in. Before Jamie could get him inside, Hedden fell silent.
So close.
Something hit Talin in the face, denting his visor. Blood filled his nose and mouth. He fell, stunned and choking on top of the Guthani he’d just dispatched. The tide of bodies closed over him. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t get up, he was being trampled, kicked… As panic set in, strong hands grabbed the back of his cuirass and hauled him out of the crush. His rescuer half-dragged, half-carried him into the bailey and propped him against the wall of the barbican, where he saw it was Lorhine who had saved him. Talin tore off his battered helmet and gulped air. Lorhine shouted something at him, but all Talin could hear was a loud ringing in his ears. Without waiting for a reply, Lorhine ran back into the barbican. Talin got up to follow, but his legs had lost all strength and he fell back against the wall.
Just then, Lyco stumbled out of the shadows of the barbican and into the bailey, blood streaming down his chest. Knights ran to close the gates as the Guthani tried to force their way inside. Outside on the bridge Talin could see Lacgarde, surrounded but still fighting. A blood chilling howl rose above the tumult and a huge hulking shadow loomed up behind the foremost attackers. The pressure on the gates eased allowing them to be closed and the portcullis to be lowered.
They passed from darkness into light. Hands reached up and gently lifted Cassian off Lyco’s trembling back. Alyda looked up; focused. They were in the bailey. Lyco plodded on, his breath coming in ragged gasps, his lungs working like bellows. Alyda laid her head against his neck, and listened to the thunder of his mighty heart. Slowly, like a passing storm, it diminished to a whisper. When the destrier fell, she had neither the strength, nor the desire to jump clear.
Flea could hear the Bear rending flesh and snapping bones beyond the gate. It didn’t sound very nice. He watched them carry the wounded knights away, but they left the black horse where he’d fallen in the middle of the bailey. His thick legs were folded beneath him, the tip of his armoured nose rested on the ground. He could have been asleep, if it wasn’t for all the blood. Flea crept over to the dead giant.
Clouds had already veiled his angry eyes. He reached out and stroked the horse’s corded neck. It was hot; the fur velvet-soft, except where his fingers found the hard ridge of an old scar. He traced the knotted flesh with the tip of his finger to where scarlet streams branched across the horse’s chest and etched zigzags in the dirt. Flea watched the patterns crawl ever more slowly across the ground until…they…finally…stopped.
The dragon’s name hovered tantalisingly on the edge of its memory. It chased it like a cat chasing a moth, discovering as it did all manner of fascinating memories it had long forgotten or indeed, had never known. As it examined these thoughts, each in its turn, it ripped apart the trebuchets.
When it finished its task the dragon knew it was pleased that the terrible weapons had been smashed into kindling. It noticed more of the little flesh things—the
humans.
They were
all around it
.
There had been a time when it had talked with humans
,
but that had been long ago.
Today, it would have ignored them, but then a bright sharp pain blossomed in its foreleg. The dragon who-almost-remembered-its-name, immediately remembered something important:
what magic has made, it can undo.
A powerful rage swelled within its fiery heart and it smashed them aside. But that wasn’t all. The dragon felt an altogether new sensation, something it was sure it had never experienced before. It knew that this entirely new, but not entirely unpleasant sensation was called
fear
. The dragon-who-wanted-to-travel decided it was time to be elsewhere and launched into the sky. Humans and trebuchets were soon forgotten as it revelled in the joy of flying as though it had never flown before.
Chapter Sixteen
I
t was pure bad luck that the mercenary had fled from a dragon only to run into a shapeshifter. The warrior’s neck had snapped like wet wood and he now lay cooling at Pytre’s feet, a surprised look frozen on his face.
If only there was more time.
Pytre crouched beside the corpse to watch what was happening on the battlefield. The Guthlanders were such perverse creatures. They supposedly revered dragons, but what did they do the moment they laid eyes on one? He gave a throaty chuckle and stretched out in the long grass beside the kill.
The Guthlanders threw themselves at the elemental, but the beast was oblivious to their presence. It was wholly intent on destroying the war machines.
Blood, fire, and silver.
The shapeshifter sat up, dug his talons into the dead mercenary’s hide and sniffed the air. Yes, there it was—faint, but unmistakable; the sweet smell of Yorl.
He tracked the slender thread of scent to the leader of the horse warriors
and the spear he wielded; finely crafted and shining with the subtle light of magic. A ripple of excitement tightened his balls as he watched the spear spin through the air and strike the dragon in the leg. It didn’t penetrate deeply, but stung enough to anger it.
The elemental roared its fury and lashed out with its huge claws, sweeping the horse warriors across the field before launching itself skywards.
Pytre’s keen eyes marked its passage through the towering cloud stacks until it was nothing more than a dark speck against the vault of heaven.
On the field, a warrior with the arrogance of a pack leader ordered the body of the horse warrior to be taken back to their camp. As pleasant as it was, lying in the long grass with a fresh kill, Pytre had to go. He licked the blood from his claws before padding silently into the forest.
They built the bier for Thane Jorun Hanser:
Dragon Slayer,
out of Trenham’s smashed Trebuchets. It seemed a shame to waste all that good, seasoned wood. The pyre was eight feet high and strewn with what flowers they could find; Hanser’s dead horse lay at the warrior’s feet.
Thorgulsen knelt before the utter, fucking waste of his time and effort, and inspected the scars on the back of his hands. When he’d pretended to pray for what seemed like an appropriately respectful length of time, he got up and threw a handful of coins onto the body. Quietly cursing Hanser to the Void, he went to find the mercenary captains and the Priest.
For once the sell-swords looked like they’d earned the fortune he was paying them. Trenham’s face sported a livid bruise and Telvier was wigless, his shaved pate gleaming with sweat and his usually spotless attire grubby and blood splattered. Neither was happy to hear what he had to tell them.
“We need to get this over with now, it’s gone on long enough,” argued Trenham.
The mercenary was touchy today; but then, he’d just seen his profits turned into expensive firewood.
“I must agree with my brother captain. I mean a dragon! Really, it’s too much.
I’m sure my contract does not cover fighting mythical creatures. And surely one has to actually
slay
a dragon in order to be called a
Dragon Slayer?
Not that I wish to speak ill of the dead, but the cursed thing flew away.” Telvier laughed mirthlessly and examined a tear in his cuff.
Thorgulsen shrugged and smoothed his moustaches. “They’re saying that it flew away to die. Anyway, it’s out of my hands. Thane Hanser must have full funeral rites performed before the sun sets tomorrow, ‘tis the law.”
“Then burn him tonight, for gods sake!” exclaimed Trenham.
“I can’t. Tonight the Heroes’ Song must be sung, and we must feast with his spirit before he goes to join the ancestors on the ‘morrow.” Thorgulsen noted the ill-concealed disgust written on their faces. He couldn’t blame them, but the law was the law. He might as well declare himself renegade and cut his throat as break it.
He leaned across the table and whispered. “If it was up to me I’d throw the glory-seeking prick in the shit pit, but he’s one of Redbear’s shield brothers and a hero, and must be treated as such. I must do as the law commands. Don’t worry: we’ll kill the Steelskins later, they aren’t going anywhere.”
The flesh of Alyda’s thigh was pulled tight in a neat, five inch long, line of stitches. A loop, a knot, a flash of a knife and Gedthis was finished. He got up, wiped his hands on his filthy apron and threw his tools into his bag.
“She’s lost some blood and her knee may be broken; other than that, I don’t think she’s too badly off.” He arched his back to stretch tired muscles. “I’ll come by later. When she wakes up, tell her to stay here and rest. You never know; she might listen.”
Jamie closed the door behind the surgeon. The sound of screaming echoed from the other rooms in the infirmary.
“Lyco didn’t roll on her,” Jamie said, his voice hoarse from shouting. “Even though he was dying he took care of her. She was the only person who could ride him…”
The brash young warrior was gone, leaving only the boy, struggling to come to terms with his grief. On impulse, Talin put his arm around him as he would his brother. Jamie wept.
“Hedden, damn him. He died in my arms. I was too slow, couldn’t save him, he shouted to me, but, I…I couldn’t…”
After a while he stopped crying and straightened up. Too embarrassed to look Talin in the eye, he mumbled something about guard duty and rushed out. He had no reason to feel ashamed; Talin had seen the boy fight like a Void-spawned demon trying to save his friend. He wanted to tell him that it was alright to cry, that no one could be as hard as iron or as cold as stone, all the bloody time. Well, perhaps there was one person who could.
For a moment, he wondered if he really knew Alyda. He leaned over and to erase his doubts as much as anything, kissed her. She stirred, but didn’t wake.
“Don’t ever scare me like that again,” he whispered before curling up beside her and falling asleep.
Alyda opened her eyes, tried to focus on her surroundings. The parchment coloured walls were spotted and smeared with blood; it stank of vinegar, vomit, and piss.
Must be the infirmary.
Talin was asleep beside her. Dark circles ringed his eyes; he looked exhausted, but thankfully, very much alive.
She shuffled to the edge of the bed and carefully sat up. Her thigh was sore and she could feel the pull of the stitches beneath the bandage, but her knee was worse. It throbbed like a heartbeat, and had swollen to fill the knee cop of her armour. She took a breath and flexed her leg. A dozen sharp pains sang out in chorus, but it just about worked. She counted herself lucky, until she remembered Cassian and Lyco, and gods only knew how many others.
She stared at the wall, and tried to find the calm centre of her being where pain couldn’t touch her, and dark thoughts couldn’t distract her from what she had to do. Hard as iron, cold as…
as what?
She leaned over and kissed Talin. He stirred, but didn’t wake.
Using her sword for support, she climbed to her feet. The moment she put weight on her injured leg she wanted to sit back down. The pain wasn’t unbearable, but it was damn close. Gritting her teeth, she went to find Cassian.
Griga was slumped against the wall outside Cassian’s apartments. Alyda gave her an enquiring look. The veteran knight shook her head. It was all she needed to know, too much. Alyda took a deep breath, knocked and entered. The Vorsten’s nurse dipped a timid curtsy and continued to pace up and down, rocking their sleeping son in her arms. Beria was sitting at her husband’s bedside, she didn’t look up.
As pale as the sheets, Cassian was unconscious, his breathing shallow. A bright rose of blood had blossomed on his bandages. Beria was sobbing quietly into her lap. Alyda felt like she was intruding on private grief. She cleared her throat, searched for something to say, some words of comfort that could convey to Beria the depth of her sorrow, but what words sprang to mind sounded trite, empty.
There was only one thing she could do, one unassailable mark of respect that she could give which Cassian would understand.
She saluted.