Chapter 6

‘It was her decision. You should know by now that it is hard to say no to her.’

I took another sip of the wine that Fronsac had poured but didn’t taste it. As it transpired, the blast from the wards had left me unconscious for five whole days; it was nothing compared to the entire months and seasons that I would have slept through once, but as he’d said, neither the world nor the war had stopped simply because I had.

While I had lain there insensate, the rest of the Penullin general Novstan’s army had caught up with the vanguard and begun establishing their camps, and by now the encirclement of the city was all but complete. That much had been expected, unlike the news that Lucien and his contingent of paladins had not arrived at their meeting with Baron Karsten, who had instead found himself being ambushed by Penullin cavalry and had escaped with less than half of his men.

Once that news had reached Tatyana’s ears she had pressed Jean for permission to leave. I believed Fronsac when he said he’d tried all he could to persuade her to wait, but with me expected to either die or not wake for weeks she would not be dissuaded.

I lowered my now empty glass aside. ‘I understand. I think I would have been more surprised had she stayed.’

‘Me too. I’m not sure if she takes her vows seriously or if she’s simply too stubborn to change her mind.’

‘I think it is both,’ I said, making him laugh. I watched him for a moment, then set my glass down. ‘Ask.’

‘Ask what?’

‘The questions hiding behind your teeth. You’ve barely tasted your wine, and if you spin that ring one more time I’m fairly certain your finger will come off.’

He laughed and ran his fingers through his hair. As blind as I was to the secret language of human expression, his anxiety was plain to see.

‘I have so many,’ he said, leaning forward, his curiosity suddenly strong enough that I could taste it in the aura of magic he radiated. ‘I would ask them all if we had time, but since dawn is racing towards us, just answer me this: why are you here?’

I refilled my glass and went to the window. We were in his private chambers, having made our way along seldom used passageways in the palaces, a cloak and hood hiding me from casual observers. I preferred it here; his wards kept the strange pressures of the dark magics gathering outside the city at bay, and the windows were large, unbarred and open. They looked out across the west of the city, the hill the palace sat upon giving a view of streets where only a few lamps held back the menace of the unnatural clouds overhead. Their uniform blackness was broken only by sporadic flashes of green light, as if some eldritch thing was moving through them.

‘Navar Louw,’ I said, leaning against the frame. ‘Your Worm Lord. I chose this form to escape from him. It was a desperate measure, but it was the only option I could see.’

‘Couldn’t you have flown away?’

He couldn’t see my grimace from where he sat. ‘No. He cut my wings soon after I came into his charge.’ I swallowed against an unexpected tightening of my throat for I had tried to avoid thinking of those days. ‘And not just slashes, but actually cut parts of them away.’ I finished my wine and turned away from the unsettling green of the clouds. ‘Tracking a flightless dragon is easier than tracking a man.’

‘Could you not have healed them?’

‘We have a shared enemy in time. I could have healed them, and one day I will, but to regrow flesh from new takes longer than healing a simple wound. And the skin of my wings needs to be strong; if I had forced it to grow it would have been as soft as that of a hatchling.’

‘So why come here?’

‘I was looking for you, as it happens.’ I smiled at his widening eyes. ‘I mean a scholar, not you specifically. There was a flaw in my transmogrification which left a fissure in my mind and a hole in my memories. I could not remember all of my own name, let alone my purpose.’

‘Fascinating. So this is not a glamour? That is your own body, your own, draconic flesh?’

‘It is.’ I stood a little straighter as he looked me up and down, his awe almost palpable and quite intoxicating.

‘You must have been desperate to attempt something that dangerous. Foolish, even.’

I waved his comment away. ‘It was a small flaw in an otherwise grand work.’

He sipped at his wine, then leaned forward. ‘Is he still hunting you?’

‘I believe so. All his minions, Polsson included, had a description and instructions to capture me.’

‘Intriguing. Will you walk with me? I have duties to attend to that will not wait for the dawn.’

‘Where to? As you are so fond of reminding me, I am a fugitive, wanted for treason and murder.’

‘Leave that to me. Come now.’

And so it was that for the second time that night I found myself following Fronsac along deserted passageways. These led to a small metal gate that opened as we approached and I found myself walking out into the city streets. He had given me a staff, although it had so little magical potential that it was little more than an ornate branch, but with my hooded cloak and the darkness that lay so thick across the city he assured me that I was a passable apprentice. He seemed content to walk without speaking, which suited me too.

I had not appreciated how protected the palace was until we left its confines. The clouds felt lower and far more menacing out in the open. The roads we followed were empty save for a few stray cats that hissed and wailed as we passed, and the only lights I saw were those glowing behind the shuttered windows of a tavern, the sound of the laughter within strangely jarring after the silence that blanketed the streets.

‘Why are they so happy?’ I asked.

‘Wine has its own magic,’ he replied, pausing to re-light a tall lamp with a touch of his staff.

The light seemed hesitant at first, but then slowly strengthened. I fed a little power into my sorcery and let it drift out around me like a moth’s antennae. The dark magics practised by Navar’s wizards left an unpleasant but distinctive echo, and as I walked I began to sense it around me, a faint but pervasive buzz at the edge of hearing that was hard to ignore once you became aware of it. The grating buzz began to fade as we approached one of the guard towers that studded the city walls though, and I tugged my hood up a little more as we reached the fringes of the light cast by the lamps set at its entrance. The two guards at the foot of the stairs were already watching us.

Fronsac slowed and turned to me. ‘Whatever happens, do not let go of the staff.’

With that, he touched his to the top of mine and I felt a jolt as a latent spell swelled to life within it. Like the metal used for the tokens, the staff I bore was largely unfinished but an effective channel for his spell. I felt nothing more than a brief chill that quickly washed over me, but I could feel the magic he’d transferred to the staff vibrating within it. He seemed to be satisfied with whatever he had done and strode up to the door without any further hesitation; I followed and tried to mimic his confidence. The guards quickly stepped back and opened the door, although I saw that both were still watching us closely.

For all that I had destroyed more than a few  such fortifications in my time, I had never been inside one like this before. It was smaller than I imagined, possibly due to the thickness of the walls, but the starchy reek of a score or more men living within its confines made it almost impossible for me to concentrate on anything else except not choking on the smell. I pressed the thick sleeve of the cloak to my face and breathed through the fabric and hurried after Fronsac who, having greeted the surly men loitering in the central chamber, was now climbing the stairs to the top.

I took several deep breaths as we emerged onto the roof, where most of the space was taken up by one of their siege bows, which looked far bigger and more complicated up close. I felt my lip curl into a sneer as I saw the spear-sized arrows stacked next to it.

‘What was all that about?’ Fronsac said, his voice pitched low enough that the four soldiers who he’d just greeted could not hear him. ‘It looked like you were going to throw up.’

‘The air in there is as thick as cheese.’

‘Nonsense. It’s a bit stuffy, but what did you expect?’

‘Perhaps if you had told me where we were going and why I would have known what to expect.’

It was a small lie, but he didn’t need to know that. Rather than reply, he turned to the guards. ‘Gentlemen, would you mind going downstairs while we take care of this?’

They didn’t hesitate, and after a quick chorus of ‘Yes sir’ they disappeared through the hatch, which Fronsac shut behind them.

‘Over here,’ he said, tapping his staff to a large square of pale stone that I hadn’t noticed before. A single, large rune was carved into it, and it didn’t take much focus for me to see the dark blue light that suffused it.

‘What is it?’

‘It’s a ward stone. I had a dozen or so made some time ago, although I had hoped never to use them.’ He sat on the edge of one of the boxes holding spare shafts for the siege bow. ‘Do you recognise it?’

I closed my eyes and brushed a frond of sorcery across it until I felt it react. I sensed a slow strength behind it, arcs of blue light meeting each of my golden strands, and as I maintained the touch I felt that strength rising like the blood of something roused from a long sleep, the arcs thickening until they pushed mine back. I slowly withdrew my touch and felt it subside, but slower than it had risen, as if wary of a trick.

‘It’s a rune of protection.’

‘And?’

‘What do you mean, and?’

‘It’s inscribed on a defensive tower. Any fool could have guessed that.’

I swallowed my irritation. ‘Its strength is anchored somewhere beneath the city, somewhere deep and strong. It feels slower to react, but I sense that it reacts to what is put against it.’

‘Excellent, and correct. This is the shielding rune. Its name means “the fortress” in the old tongue.’

‘Your old tongue and mine are two different things.’

‘Well, now you know.’ He looked up at the skies, then to the east where the fires of the Penullin camp glittered like fallen stars. ‘I know you’ve felt it. The darkness that hangs over the city like a shroud.’

‘As soon as we stepped out of the palace.’

‘These men, these soldiers, they’re all waiting for the arrival of an army and a forest of siege towers to mark the start of the battle.’ He leaned on his staff. ‘They have no idea that it’s already begun.’

‘And this is your battleground,’ I said, tapping the stone with my foot.

‘Part of it. I have a stone in each of the twelve towers, and I have as many of my apprentices as I can spare setting a similar enchantment in the tokens that Niels is producing, but they are all near to exhaustion.’

‘As are you. You smell like an old man on the edge of infirmity.’

‘Well, that’s a bit harsh,’ he said with a fleeting smile. ‘But you’re not entirely wrong. The idea of sleeping more than two hours a night is fast becoming little more than a distant memory.’

‘Drawing on your power to sustain you will only work for a short period. There will be a heavy price to pay.’

‘Do you think I don’t know that?’

‘You’re still doing it, so yes.’

He snorted. ‘Well, I don’t have the luxury of a choice. I can protect the soldiers, but out there? The fear that the darkness brings is already festering and there’s little I can do about it. This city is going to tear itself apart long before the catapults rain down.’

‘Why did you bring me here, Fronsac?’

‘I needed you to feel it.’ He waved his hand at the sky. ‘To understand what we are facing. I have spent my days buried in every book I can find, looking for something, anything that could help us. And now I find that a dragon has been sleeping in my chambers for a week.’

‘The.’

‘The what?’

‘The dragon. I am the last of my kind.’

‘Really?’ He shook his head. ‘The point is, you are my miracle. Our miracle, do you not see that? If half the stories about you are true then we have a chance, a real chance, to destroy the Worm and everything he stands for.’ He sighed. ‘To avenge my sons.’

‘I still do not understand why you have brought me here. I have already given my word to help cast him down.’

‘But that was you, as a man.’ He stepped close and clapped a hand to my shoulder. ‘We need you. We need the dragon. I have retrieved a copy of Henkman’s Chronicle from what remains of the library, and if half of it is true then you are our greatest hope.’

I shook his hand off. ‘I gave my word to oppose Navar Louw, not be the nursemaid to a city of paranoid savages who will turn on me before his body is even cold.’

He took a few steps back, then turned away and stared out towards the Penullin camp. For my part, I folded my arms, leaned against the wall and waited.

‘I’m not asking you to be our nursemaid,’ he said, still looking out into the dark. ‘Nor our champion.’

‘If not that, then what?’

When he turned around, his shoulders were hunched like an old man’s as he leaned on his staff. ‘Destroy Louw, but do it soon.’ He leaned on his staff, the shadows giving his face the cast of a skull. ‘We cannot stand against what is coming.’

‘Even with such protection?’

He sat back down on the box of spears and rubbed his face with both hands. ‘I’m fighting a forest fire with a leaking bucket. For every yard I gain, I lose another two, and the real heat is yet to come.’ He took a small flask from a hidden pocket and drank from it, wincing as he lowered it. ‘We’re all going to die here. Or worse.’

He rested his head against the wall and looked up at me. ‘You’re the only one I’ve said that to. Even Jean still thinks we have a chance.’ He closed his eyes. ‘I’m so tired, Stratus.’

It was the truth. I could see it in the aura surrounding him and taste it in his scent. This was no gambit for my sympathy, but actual honesty.

‘So why are you still fighting?’

‘I am sworn to...’

‘Why are you still fighting?’ I asked again. He opened his eyes, and I let him see the glimmer of sorcery in mine. ‘Do not lie to me.’

I felt his heartbeat increase as his hands clenched into fists, the more familiar tinge of anger filtering into his aura and scent. He pressed his fists to his forehead for several heartbeats, then relaxed again although, if anything, the anger surrounding him increased as he did so.

‘My sons.’ His voice was quiet, but there was steel in it. ‘They died calling for me, and I couldn’t help them. I couldn’t stop him. I see and hear them every time I close my eyes.’ He gritted his teeth and, as I watched, every trace of anger in his aura and scent vanished like the light of a snuffed candle, an impressive feat of self-control. ‘I would happily break every oath I have ever taken if it gave me one chance to kill that bastard. I should feel shame at this, but I cannot find it within myself.’

‘That’s because there is no shame in vengeance, my friend.’ He took the hand I offered and I pulled him to his feet. ‘Anger and hate have ever been stronger than justice and duty.’

He tugged his robes into a neater arrangement. ‘You have a talent for making me say things I have never told anyone else.’

‘Vengeance is a cause close to my heart. I will do what I can to help you achieve it, but to do so you must help me too.’

‘Anything.’

‘A dangerous offer to make one such as me, wizard.’

Before I could say anything, a stabbing pain lanced through my chest. I fell back against the wall, vainly clutching at my breastbone, but there was no wound to clutch at. I groaned as the pain pulsed through me again, twisting and pulling, as if someone was pulling a barbed arrow from my flesh. I slid down the wall, gasping for breath even as Fronsac reacted, his wards rippling outwards.

I felt my sorcery rising in response to their touch, and as it did I at last realised what I was feeling. Something was forcibly drawing power from me. No, not something, but someone. Tatyana was hurt, and grievously so if the healing construct was reacting in this way.