And yet the power was closing in on them, fast- "Dyan!" Stranger cried. Her voice rang out in all directions, too loud for a normal cry; she had to have cast something to enhance it.
"Kill her!" Blain snapped. "Quick, get her out of the water and do it!"
A rush of wind knocked him backward and off his feet. He stayed down under the water"s surface, waiting till his breath ran out. Fast, so fast. How had the beast come so fast?
When Blain rose Stranger was not in sight. Thaun"s body lay in two twitching pieces on the ground, spilling guts like the stuffing from a torn doll. The Hunter"s face showed surprise.
Blain could hardly believe the little lurking spell had saved him from a dragon. Quickly he pulled from the corpse all charms and wards, except of course for those melded into or tattooed on the Hunter"s skin. Up in the tower, at the uppermost window, was the tall, bald silhouette of the magician staring down. No magic had won out this time; no illusion, no spell work at all. Simple trickery. Potential ally indeed, ah the little chord he"d struck, the note he"d known Blain had wished to hear. Had he also known Dyan would hear Stranger"s cries and rescue her? Had he meant for the dragon to kill them both?
Blain tipped his walking stick in a gesture as though to say well played. The bald head did not, as he"d half hoped, nod in a gesture of reciprocal respect to a fellow illusionist; the tower"s magician just stared down at him as he limped away from the water, with a last regretful look at the corpse of his finest Hunter.
IN FLIGHT.
1.
The drake"s beating wings had soon put the tower far behind them. Gusts of air both warm and cold blew at them so hard it felt like they"d be knocked out of the saddle-like grooves between the upright nubs on Case"s leathery back. The heat always burning deep in his belly kept them warm. It was too dark to see much of the landscape pa.s.sing below but for the odd lantern-lit window or campfire in fields which looked like oceans of blackness. At times Case tilted forward like a roller-coaster cart heading for a plunge straight down, as though he every now and then lost control of his wings or wished to very briefly rest them. What seemed hours of uneventful flight went by, the wind flicking Aziel"s hair in Eric"s face all the while. Their winding flightpath veered toward a distant gang of unnatural-looking mountains shaped like pillars. Then a voice spoke from the gloom right beside them: "Your wish?"
All three pa.s.sengers aboard the drake screamed. Loup nearly fell, and clutched Eric"s waist to stay seated. They were descending through a blanket of cloud and could see little but cotton whiteness. The powerful animal stink of war mages carried to them even through the headwind they flew into. Shapes could be heard b.u.mping into Case"s wings. The drake grunted in confusion and dropped more alt.i.tude. "Your bidding," said a machine-deep voice from the other side.
"I"m yours," said another.
"Your will." A chorus of such voices intermingled with declarations of servility.
"You"re Shadow," said one visible directly above them when they had come free of the cloud. Amongst a s.h.a.ggy dangling nest of hair, cat-yellow eyes peered luminously down. Smoke trailed from the tips of its horns, its staff clutched to its chest with long-clawed hands. Its beard strands brushed Eric"s head like friendly but unwelcome fingers. "Among foes," it said. "A servant."
"No! These aren"t foes," said Eric, knowing what it meant to do. "Don"t attack them! Go! Leave us."
"Your word?" it said, frowning as though confused. Others descended through the clouds and flew shoulder to shoulder with the first.
"Yes, that"s my word. Leave us! Fly east. Go! East! f.u.c.k off!"
"A servant," said a dozen voices in acknowledgement. Each of the creatures veered away.
"Tell em to go and fight that dragon," Loup whispered in his ear.
But the flock had already departed. Their shrieking was soon far distant till it faded from earshot altogether. Unperturbed, the drake beat its wings harder, steering a course through the clouds as though all the skies were mapped out neatly in its mind. They stopped to take shelter from a heavy rain-shower in a cliff-side cave, its floor covered in smooth white pebbles. The drake set himself heavily down, seeming to announce with a huffed sigh that he had flown quite enough for one day. Loup dug through the smooth pebbles and gathered up bones buried beneath them. He fondled them in his gnarled hands. "Drake bones," he said. "Not dragons, just little drakes. No wonder he brought us here. An old drake nest, this."
"We"re putting a lot of trust in Case," said Eric, peering out the cave"s opening, where dropping off a little ledge was a sheer cliff side. Far beneath, huge square blocks of stone waited patiently to thump falling bodies. "If he took off and left us here there"s no way we"d be able to climb down."
"He won"t leave us. A good old drake, he is," said Loup, running a hand over the beast"s scaled head. It made a noise more like an old man snoring than a cat"s purr, but it seemed to denote satisfaction. Loup said, "Strange, though. He doesn"t act like people have trained him, but he"s not wild, not at all. Funny old feller! I wonder if a mage got inside his head somewhere along the way and tinkered around." He peered closely into the drake"s large gem-like eyes and squinted as though reading fine print therein. Case gazed back impa.s.sively.
"How many drakes have you known?" said Eric.
"This is the first! And I like him," said Loup. He brought the old drake bones to Case. "Hungry?" Case sniffed the bones, took one of the smaller ones in his mouth and crunched it languidly into splinters with a noise that filled the little cave. "They share memories like this, eating each other"s remains," said Loup, patting Case"s hide. "When two meet up they"ll each trade a scale to eat. That"s like having a long conversation, for drakes. Case will be learning things his long-departed friend knew, once he digests those bones. The old one crawled here when he knew he was going to die. He knew others of his kind would one day come find him, I reckon. Nice old race the drakes, oh aye they are. Even if they do eat expensive necklaces."
"Arch has one in a cage," said Aziel, breaking a long, sullen silence which Eric guessed was to protest Loup having invited himself along.
"What"s he do with it?" said Loup.
"Nothing. It just sits there," she said.
"Fine man, he is. Not enough cages in the world for his liking. Guess that"s why he"s put so many folk in the ground, eh? That"s a cage too, with a lock that never opens. The stuff of his sweetest dreams, la.s.s. And part of you knows it."
Aziel went red but didn"t answer.
They slept that night curled around Case, the heat in his belly like coals in a fire.
After an hour or two Eric woke at the cry of a war mage, surely the same flock of them seeking him out for new orders. To his great surprise Aziel had her head resting on his shoulder. She"d tested their patience with complaints about the lack of hot baths, inadequate food, her little aches and pains. All of it code he supposed for "I"m scared". Only when he"d told her fables from Otherworld, such as Snow White, had she settled down. Loup had listened with equal enthusiasm.
He looked down at her faintly Oriental face. He could not deny that she was beautiful. He imagined ripping her dress off while she peevishly complained and whined ...
A faint gleam ran about her necklace. Her face creased with pain as the light grew stronger. She moaned in her sleep, cried out and sat up gasping. Loup and the drake did not stir.
"Everything OK?" Eric asked her.
She discovered she"d leaned on him in her sleep. Her eyes would not have shot wider had she found a Tormentor beside her. "You"re not to touch me!" she whispered fiercely.
"I have no interest in touching you," he lied.
She frowned. "Why not?"
"Huh?"
"I mean you"re not to! But you"re allowed to ... to want to."
He laughed.
She grabbed at the necklace, trying to dig her fingers between it and her skin. "I wish I hadn"t picked this up. I had bad dreams again."
"What sort of dreams? Was Shadow in them?"
"He was choking me with a big piece of chain. He kept saying he had a mountain to lift up, but I wouldn"t let him. And he couldn"t do it till I"d died." She shuddered. "There was more but I don"t want to think about it."
"Do you want another story, then?"
Her face lit up at the prospect before she shrugged with feigned indifference. "The others weren"t very good."
"Let"s see if I can do better. Here"s one I wrote called Jack and the Beanstalk." Not long into the telling, Aziel slept again, and again her body leaned into his. He stroked free the hair that fell across her cheek, wondering why he should feel this compulsion to look after the daughter of an abomination and a tyrant.
2.
Cold wind whipped them in the early morning"s flight. The up and down plunge of the drake"s wings was like oars in boat-side water. At times Eric felt he was back at the tower, looking into the tabletop map of Levaal. Below them now a river spilled down a waterfall into a vast lake with water so clear they could see huge fish sluggishly prowling near the surface.
The drake"s belly gave an impressive rumble. "Are you sure we don"t have to feed it some real food, or give it drink?" Eric said.
"He likes beer," said Aziel, sitting tall and prim in the foremost of Case"s natural saddles. "He"ll stop at an inn when we find one and steal whatever he wants."
"We"ve named him well, then," said Eric. "The real Case would be proud."
The drake groaned.
"Are you sure you know where we"re going, lad?" said Loup behind him. "Have you thought it through?" It was the first time the folk magician had voiced this concern.
"I don"t know if I have or not. The mage back at the tower told me to go to the castle. He told me that by going, I could bring Vous undone."
Loup sighed heavily. "Not much good we"ll find at that old castle. And it"s Blain"s advice too, don"t forget. Be wary whenever you find yourself in agreement with the likes of him."
As night came the drake found another good camping spot on a high platform under the open sky, in what Loup said were called the Spirit"s Crown mountains. "Has other names too, but that"s what we called it where I come from. They used to mine these places."
"For scales?"
"Magic stone. You could find it here, back before they dug the guts out of the place. Made some of Tanton"s and High Cliff"s city walls with it, stone that"d give itself easy to effects."
"Effects like what?" Eric asked, settling into Case as though he were a beanbag. The drake seemed quite content with this arrangement.
"Spells of defence," said Loup. "Try climbing those walls, if you"re an enemy of the city!"
"So you think they"ll hold out awhile when the castle attacks?"
"Longer"n the others did, aye. Even when the full weight of the castle falls on em. Which it will, and soon. Whole world"s about to change, lad. Aziel here might call it a victory. But sometimes, n.o.body wins a fight. n.o.body at all."
The following day they saw some of that very force, a huge contingent of men crossing the vast plains between Tsith and the inland sea it shared with Yinfel. Countless spear tips pointing skyward made a shuffling forest. "Look at all that yonder," said Loup sadly, pointing to where ma.s.sive sheets of grey-black smoke plumed into the air. "Fools"re burning the farmland as they go. Such waste."
"Why would they do that?" said Aziel.
Loup scoffed. "They don"t plan on living in the cities they take. They"ll kill everyone off and be done with it. No more taking over a new city, taming a reluctant population. When the war"s over, they won"t need people or cities. We"re done and goodbye. A few of us"ll live on the fringes for a while. Maybe a long while, till they push us into the unclaimed lands. Hunt us down like they hunted the half-giants." Loup sighed. "Hard future ahead, girl. Not for you, but for everyone else."
"Doesn"t sound much different from what the dragons have in mind for us," said Eric. Case wheeled east so they would not fly into the sheets of smoke.
"Aye no, it"s no different. Death"s at both doors, and his ghoulish children at the windows, looking in. No way out, lad. Unless you can do some miracle at the castle, you with no plan or clue what you"re up to!" Loup laughed sadly.
"Take me down there," Aziel ordered the drake.
"Now what? Why"s that then?" cried Loup.
"I"ll tell them to turn around, since you"re so worried about what they"re doing. I don"t like them lighting fires any more than you, even if those are rebel cities." The other two laughed. Aziel turned about, glaring at them both. "Why are you laughing? I"m the Lord"s daughter! They"ll obey me. Drake, take us down there. Go! Down!" She raised a hand as if to slap the beast, but instead clutched at her neck and moaned.
"What"s wrong?" said Loup.
"It"s getting hot," she said. "He"s moving around in there. I can feel it. He wants to get out."
"You keep him in," said Loup. "Hold him! That"s the last thing we need, is Shadow loose again."
Aziel said nothing. Eric could feel the heat from her necklace. An occasional glint of light ran about it, so quick it was hard to be sure he"d seen it. He thought back to Shadow, enraged, running in a circle about the tower"s water; of how the rocks had melted from the heat he"d caused. "Hold onto him," he whispered into Aziel"s ear. "He"ll think you and I tricked him, that we trapped him in there. You and I are the ones he"ll be angry at."
"You"re the one who tricked him," she said.
"Sure. Do you want to have to explain that to Shadow? Hold onto him. You can do it."
"I"ll try," she said, sounding nothing like a Lord"s daughter.
3.
The drake descended from the clouds to find shelter for their third night, finding another old nest as though it had seen a sign planted high up in a hillside made for drakes" eyes only. A single piece of lightstone in the cavern roof gave the place a gentle flickering glow. It showed faded hieroglyphs and runes across the curved walls. Loup ran a gnarled forefinger over them, murmuring as he tried to read them. "Not just a drake den, this place," he said. "People used this cave too. We"re the first here in a long while ... a long while."
"What"s the writing say?" said Eric.
"Mostly a lost tongue," said Loup. "Something about this being a favoured casting place. My guess, a dragon cult used it. This before the dragon cults were all scattered and killed off (with the Spirits" blessings and help, if the talk"s true). The Spirits must take kinder to Inferno cults than dragon cults. If you know why, well hey! It"s news to me. They kill off old Inferno but let his cults alone, who want nothing more than to wake him up and feed his embers!"
Eric ran a finger over the runes. They flared with icy cold in response to his touch.
"Careful, lad," said Loup.
"Why would mages come all the way up here to cast their magic?" said Eric.
"Ah, not mages, lad," said Loup, crouching low to peer at some marks gouged into the stone. "Anyone can cast magic. You and Aziel could, if you knew some rituals. Just takes more time than the way mages do it. Long-casting, some call it, or ritual-casting. Can"t rely on it, might not work half the time. Ritual casters can"t see the airs to tell if the airs are right! Nor see what airs they"re working with lots of different kinds of airs, y"see. My little tricks are good with most types. But those Inferno cult fools, like that Lalie girl, remember? They were doing such spells before the Tormentors found em."
"Are there any spells we could do now?" said Aziel, looking eager to try.
"No! Never bothered with that nonsense," said Loup, flopping down on Case as though he were a couch, a bit too heavily for the drake"s liking. He said, "Takes days to cast something that way. Sometimes weeks or more, if you want to make serious magic. Oh aye, once there was a cult which set some kids aside at birth to cast lifetime spells, blessing their valleys and lakes and fields."
"Did it work?"
"Aye, la.s.s, it did! Good magic, some of it. I"ve no issue with blessing a paddock so your carrots and tatoes grow! The Inferno people though, not a true mage among em."
Eric was running out of fairy tales for them. Tonight"s was Red Riding Hood, which Aziel found particularly gripping, and which Loup apparently took as a comedy. Rain outside eased them to sleep in Case"s warmth.