The Broken World, page 35
The memories came later, hidden under layers of pain and interspersed with long periods of blissful unconsciousness. Benfro remembered waking to find himself surrounded by men. It was dark, and all he could see were faces shadowed by flaming torches. He should have been terrified, but he could still sense the presence of Earith and that calmed him. Even her healing powers could not completely ease his pain as the men lifted him, straightened his wings and tail, and he blacked out again.
When he woke, it was to a rhythmic motion that he eventually realized was a horse-drawn cart, much like those that had transported him and the other circus attractions through Llanwennog. Only this was flat and open; no walls to keep him from escaping, no chain around his leg. Neither were necessary; he was as helpless as a newly hatched kitling. Whatever fate they bore him toward, he had no choice but to accept it.
The journey seemed to take for ever and yet no time at all. Benfro passed in and out of consciousness as the levels of pain in his back, his wings, his arms increased or decreased. When he was awake he first saw dark forest, the undersides of the tall trees painted flickering orange by the fiery torches the men carried. Then he was being pulled through open grassland as the dawn began to tinge the sky pink. And finally he was wheeled past buildings fashioned from stone the colour of straw, lining either side of a road so wide even Fflint could have stretched his wings without fear of hitting them, so smooth it was as if he were floating down a river on a windless day.
‘Bring him inside,’ he heard Earith say. Then the pain as many hands lifted him off the cart swept him back into oblivion. Benfro didn’t know how he knew, but a long time passed between that moment and the point at which he woke again. Perhaps it was because the pain was gone, replaced by a terrible stiffness that gave him a new understanding of how Sir Frynwy must have felt all the time. It may have been because the loose, bubbly noises of his breathing were gone, the sharp jabbing pain in his lungs no more now than a wince. Or it might just have been because he felt rested, even if he was still more tired than he could ever recall having been.
‘You’re awake now. Good. How do you feel?’
Benfro opened his eyes, confused for a moment that he could see only through one. Then he remembered Fflint’s talon and the horrible feeling as his eyeball had popped. He groaned at the memory of the pain.
‘My eye.’ Without thinking, he lifted his hand to his face, then stopped. It was his hand, the one that Melyn had cut off with his blade of fire back in the throne room at Tynhelyg. It wasn’t the half-grown thing that Myfanwy had coaxed into being. This was his hand. Full size. He twisted it around, popped out his claws then withdrew them again. Flexed his talons. They felt strong, but there was something not quite right.
‘My hand.’
Holding up the other one he saw what it was. Where this one was chipped and scarred, scales missing, skin tight and leathery, the other was shiny and new. As if it belonged to a dragon who had never climbed a cliff or fallen out of a tree, never spent days sorting, drying and preparing herbs, never done anything in fact.
‘It will grow battered like the other in time. Of that I have no doubt.’
Benfro looked up, only then properly seeing the dragon who had spoken. She sat on a low stone bench on the other side of a surprisingly large and airy room. Behind her a wide door opened on to a courtyard bathed in sunlight. Benfro could hear the trickle of water, and as he noticed it, so other sounds began to filter in. Birdsong, wind, the chatter of voices too light to be dragons. A shiver of fear ran through him as he realized he was hearing men and women talking in perfect, unaccented Draigiaith, but before he could do anything a bundle of blurred red fur appeared at a window and dashed across the room. Leaping up on to his arm and from there to his shoulder.
‘Benfro awake! Benfro better!’
‘Malkin?’ Benfro held up his hands again as the squirrel scampered over his head, peering upside down at him from a sitting position between his ears.
‘Where Benfro’s eye?’ The look on Malkin’s face was hard to read, inverted as it was. There was no mistaking the concern in his voice though.
‘Calm yourself, Malkin. Our guest is still healing.’ The ancient dragon stood up from the bench, walked slowly across the room towards him. Benfro tried to raise himself.
‘Don’t try to get up. You need rest, and lots of it.’ She crouched down beside the raised pallet that formed his bed and for the first time Benfro noticed his nest was made of fabrics much like those that people wore. Purest white, they were soft and supportive and gave off a scent of lavender whenever he moved.
‘You are Benfro, if young Malkin is to be believed.’ The ancient dragon smiled and held out a slender arm. The squirrel leaped from Benfro’s head on to it, scampering up to her shoulder.
‘I am Benfro, and if I remember rightly, you are Earith. Thank you for healing me.’
‘You’re not done healing yet, Benfro. Though you are not as close to death’s door as when our mutual friend summoned me to your aid.’
Benfro blinked. He was still very tired, very weak. Everything appeared sideways on, even though he knew it was just because he was lying down. He reached out a hand, missing the point he had aimed for. Everything was flat, as if there was no difference between near and far. No focus.
‘My eye.’ It was part question, part remembering the fight with Fflint.
‘There are some things it is beyond even my skill to heal.’ Earith sighed, her ancient frame seeming to deflate. ‘Your eye was too damaged, and growing something like that back is … Well, I’ve never heard of any dragon who even tried.’
Benfro moved his hand back to his face, knocking himself lightly on the end of the nose as he misjudged the distance. He felt his scales, the tough leathery skin, his fangs, and then recoiled from the tenderness and swelling around his eye socket.
‘Best you try not to touch it,’ Earith said. ‘I’ve healed the flesh, driven off any infection. If your looks bother you, I know a man who can make you a glass eye to match the other so no one will know.’
Benfro slumped into his bedding, staring lopsidedly at the ornately plastered ceiling high overhead. Given everything, the loss of one eye was perhaps not something he should moan about. And he could still see his aura, the lines of the Grym, the aethereal, all without any impediment. They hovered on the edge of his vision now, as if the missing eye were somehow compensating. As he noticed them, so he noticed too the power radiating from Earith and more specifically the creature sitting on her shoulder.
‘My friend.’ Benfro looked up at the squirrel. ‘How did you find me, Malkin? How did you even know where to look?’
‘Swimming bird come, say big scaly whale on beach. Malkin not listen, but swimming bird not leave Malkin alone.’
‘Swimming bird?’ Benfro asked, then remembered the curious black and white creature and how it had peered at him before wandering off.
‘Swimming bird not clever like Malkin. But swimming bird insist Malkin come see big scaly whale. So Malkin go. Follow swimming bird. Find not whale, but friend Benfro lying there.’
It was probably the most Benfro had ever heard the little creature say in one breath, but it didn’t really answer the question.
‘You have met Malkin before, Benfro? You know who he is? What he is?’
‘He is my friend. But he is also part of the mother tree. I must have been looking for her.’ Benfro’s hearts started to beat harder, thump-thumping out of rhythm as he remembered Fflint picking him up and throwing him against a wall, piercing his eye, tearing his wing half off. ‘When I jumped. I had to escape. Couldn’t think straight. Had to get away.’
‘Calm yourself, Benfro. There will be plenty of time for answers later. Now you need to rest. Heal properly.’ Earith reached out, placed one old, leathery hand on his forehead. At her touch, his breathing calmed, his hearts fell into their proper rhythm and slowed. He felt a surge of energy flow into him, but instead of invigorating him, it dragged him down. Like the stupor after a good meal. He began to slip once more into unconsciousness, but before he surrendered himself to it, he saw the cost whatever subtle arts she practised had exacted on Earith. His last sight before his eye closed was of the ancient dragon stumbling away, reaching for the bench across the room. The last he heard were her weak words: ‘Stay with him please, Malkin. I must rest awhile myself.’
23
All power flows from the Grym, and all power flows to the Grym. The adept seeks to divert that flow and use it to his own ends. Most such workings are impermanent; a blade of fire lasts only as long as its conjuror can control it; a light will falter if the adept falls asleep. And yet there are some workings that will remain tied to a place or an object long after they have been forgotten by the mage who created them. Some can even persist after their creator’s death, and the most potent of these are curses. For the Grym is fluid, but it can be set like a mousetrap, balanced perfectly until the wrong hands fall upon it. Then the pent-up energy of months, years, centuries will be released in moments.
Father Andro, Magic and the Mind
The dragons left shortly after Melyn and Frecknock returned from their aethereal tour of the battlefield. Whether their bloodlust was finally sated or there simply wasn’t anything left to kill, the inquisitor couldn’t be sure. His eyesight had improved noticeably since the Shepherd had healed him last, but even so he couldn’t see anything moving on the plain. Only the swiftly dwindling winged shapes, fading into the pale blue sky as they headed east towards the Rim mountains and the Ffrydd.
‘You can release the enchantment now,’ Melyn commanded as he climbed on to his patiently waiting horse. Frecknock nodded once, and the air shimmered for a moment.
‘It is done.’ The dragon pulled the leather bag over her head and offered it up to the inquisitor. ‘The book, Your Grace.’
Melyn stared at her, trying to reconcile the creature of the aethereal with the dragon that abased herself so in his presence. It annoyed him perhaps more that she sold herself short than that she was trying to hide things from him. Or at least from men in general.
‘Keep it safe for me, and stay close.’ He turned in his saddle, finding Osgal just behind him. The look on the captain’s face was sour, his eyes darting away from Frecknock and back to the inquisitor. It might have been disapproval; the Shepherd knew Osgal had no reason to suffer dragons, given his recent injuries. Of course it might just have been his normal surly self.
‘Fall in. We’ll sweep the camp, finish what they began.’ Melyn didn’t say who “they” were. ‘Use your judgement regarding prisoners, but be aware many of these men are not professional soldiers. We will need someone to tend the fields and work the gold mines in the north.’
Osgal nodded, barked a few orders. They moved swiftly off the hilltop and down on to the plain, covering the distance to the remains of the camp without anyone speaking. Frecknock kept pace with the fast trot of the horses, but as they came closer, Melyn could see she wanted to be elsewhere. He couldn’t blame her; he could smell it too. A miasma of blood and shit, mixed in with burned flesh and canvas and the sharp scent of disturbed ground. Smoke drifted across the scene on the lightest of winds, ghost-like. At the edge of the encampment he reined in his horse, raising a hand for the army to halt.
‘Split into groups of a dozen men. Spread out and cover the camp in grids. I don’t want any surprises.’ Osgal dismounted, the rest of the warrior priests falling in behind him. It took moments for them to form their groups and then start picking their way through the debris. A few conjured weak blades of light, but most drew their swords, delivering swift mercy to those too wounded to survive. Those still able to stand surrendered without a fight, and even with his hatred for all things Llanwennog still burning bright, Melyn could not bring himself to blame them.
He remained mounted as the warrior priests moved towards the centre of the camp, where Geraint’s tent had stood. Vision sharper than it had been for years, Melyn saw one of his men stoop and pick up the helmet, shout something to his comrades nearby.
‘Come, follow me.’ He kicked his horse forward, Frecknock falling in behind him, and they picked a route through the destruction.
‘Fancy armour, sir,’ the warrior priest holding the helmet said as the inquisitor approached. ‘Reckon this might be one of the generals. Maybe Prince Geraint himself.’
‘It is Prince Geraint. I saw him die.’ Melyn noticed the question flicker across the warrior priest’s face, but the man did not ask it. ‘Have you found any more of him?’
‘No, sir. Just this. It was here in the middle of …’
The ground where Prince Geraint’s tent had stood looked like someone had taken a giant carpenter’s plane and shaved off the top six inches of soil. It was clean, damp earth, fine clay smoothed almost perfectly flat. Just a line of tiny parallel grooves to mark where the vast dragon’s belly had scraped the ground. It hadn’t landed so much as skidded through the camp, taking tent, prince and anything else in the way with it as it clawed back into the sky. The head had left a dent in the soil as it landed, and there just beside it lay a gold chain and amulet.
‘Don’t touch it!’ The shout came from Frecknock, but Melyn might just as easily have said it himself had he not been momentarily distracted as he dismounted. He could see the glamours woven around the chain as plain as the smoke spiralling from the nearest fire. It was too late, though. The warrior priest had bent forward, scooped up the chain in his bare hand.
His scream echoed across the devastated encampment as if the dragons had wheeled round and were even now returning for a second attack. Frecknock took a couple of steps forward, but Melyn put his hand out, placing it on her chest to stop her. The man was already dead; he just didn’t know it yet.
‘Nobody touch him.’ Melyn’s command was obeyed instantly by the warrior priests who had rushed to their comrade’s aid. The man himself was oblivious to anything but pain, his hand gripping the amulet so tightly that blood seeped through his fingers. The skin on his face turned red, then started to blister as he staggered around, his screams growing weaker and weaker. Smoke rose from his robes, and his lurching strides brought him in the direction of the inquisitor. Closer and closer until he sank to his knees at Melyn’s feet. His eyes were white orbs, vision boiled away by the heat coursing through him. Not a pleasant way to die at all. With his last strength, the man raised his hand up to the inquisitor, the amulet clearly visible through the bubbling mess of flesh and bone and pus.
‘Bloody fool. Did you learn nothing in all your years at Emmass Fawr?’ With a thought, Melyn conjured a short blade of fire and pushed the point of it deep into the dying man’s brain.
Warmed by the southern sea and the waters of the Bay of Kerdigen, Abervenn’s climate was markedly better than that of Tochers. The oak and elm were still in full leaf, the first tinges of yellow only now creeping into the edges of the canopy. Beulah sat on her mare alongside Clun’s massive stallion and peered at the walls of the city they had not so long ago left.
‘They have no idea we are here?’ she asked. A half-dozen paces ahead of them the warrior priest who had been scouting the land ahead tried to hide his nervousness. Not at being in the presence of this queen; he was an old soldier, Siarl was his name, and Beulah had known him since her earliest days at Emmass Fawr. Nor was he cowed by the Duke of Abervenn, a man a third his age who had until very recently been no more than a novitiate in the order, even if that novitiate had single-handedly driven off a dragon that had killed several fully trained warrior priests. No, the thing giving Siarl palpitations was the great Gomoran stallion. No creature that wild should be so utterly, contemptibly still.
‘The city gates are wide, Your Majesty. Not much traffic, but a few merchants are coming and going.’
‘Did you go into the city itself?’ Clun asked the question this time, although Beulah had been thinking it.
‘No, Your Grace. I thought it best to raise as little suspicion as possible. If your plan is to take them by surprise, then the fewer strangers the guards see the better.’
‘Very well. Return to your troop. Get something to eat and some rest. We will attack one hour after dusk.’
‘Your Grace, the gates will be closed by then.’
‘I am well aware of that. They would be closed before we could reach them if we just marched up there in the daylight too. Leave it to me to ensure they remain open.’
‘As Your Grace commands.’ The scout slapped his chest with a fist in salute, bowed briefly to the queen and then hurried off.
‘You have a plan, my love?’ Beulah nudged her horse a little closer to Clun’s, even though it meant she had to crane her neck yet higher to speak to him. Her filly was less flighty in the presence of the huge stallion than usual, which probably meant she was coming on heat. Time to swap horses then, unless she wanted this one crushed to death.
‘Lord Beylin’s fleet will arrive on the dawn tide. The smaller craft are hugging the coast, but he’s sent some larger ships out to sea to cut off any attempt at escape that way. I will take a small troop of warrior priests to the Eastgate at dusk. It will be closed and locked, of course, but there are ways around that.’
Beulah looked out from under the trees, judging the hour by the tone of the light. Nightfall was not far away. Two hours, perhaps.
‘Is the Eastgate not a bit small? Our men will be trapped in the courtyard beyond.’
‘We won’t need more than a hundred warrior priests. Maybe a hundred and fifty. Abervenn must be almost deserted. All the able-bodied men not already in our army will have left for Candlehall.’
‘How can you be sure?’ Beulah looked towards the distant towers, all she could see of the city from their hiding place on the edge of the woods. No flag flew, but that was normal when the duke was away.
‘It’s very unlikely there will be any adepts in the city to intercept me, so I will scout in the aethereal and make sure our men are not seen.’
