It felt quite liberating to walk rather than skulk in holes and cracks like some rodent, and even Tatyana recovered her good humour and seemed to be enjoying the novelty of wearing the wizard’s orange robes, much to Leopold’s obvious disapproval.
We saw the first of the enemy soldiers shortly after noon, a troop of horsemen who had clearly seen us too as they turned and came riding up. I watched from under my hood as Leopold hailed the first of them in fluent Penullin, his words laced with friendliness.
There were some thirty riders, ten of whom dismounted to speak with him, or as I saw it, to listen to his charmed voice. Even though I knew what he was doing, I thought he was very convincing, and by the time they rode off again several of them had embraced him and sworn to meet him in the city for a drink that night.
‘Impressive,’ I said as I watched them ride northwards.
‘Now you understand why Jean is working so hard to keep the peace with them,’ Tatyana replied, idly picking at the end of the rope that supposedly bound my wrists. I was, after all, pretending to be her prisoner. ‘Try and imagine a hundred men like Leopold telling the commoners that Drogah has decided that their king was not to be trusted.’
I grunted as I considered that. I understood his power and thought it a petty trick and an easy way to give cowards false courage, but if employed against men with no defence against it, it could be a powerful weapon. I’d used something similar in my own battles, instilling awe and fear in my enemies, but that had been a more an effect of my radiant will than a targeted assault with words and thoughts.
We encountered another such patrol with similar results mid-way through the afternoon. The leader of these riders directed Leopold to a fork in the road a mile or so distant which would lead us to the part of the encampment where the prisoners were to be interred. He didn’t question why Leopold didn’t know this already and rode away with a wave and a smile on his face instead.
Leopold swaggered over to us. ‘He reckons it’s about another six hours march to the city or so. If we push on, we’ll get there sometime after sunset. We’ll need to consider if we want the cover of darkness or to arrive pre-dawn and more rested.’
‘Darkness,’ I said. With my hide, it would be far easier for me to go unnoticed amidst the shadows than in the daylight.
‘I agree,’ said Tatyana. ‘A camp that big, there’s going to be a lot going on in the morning. It’s better to hit them in the dark when everyone’s tired and thinking about food and in no mood to chase after someone who might be just be lost.’
He scratched at his chin, then nodded his agreement and we set off towards the road the horseman had pointed us to. It was little more than a rutted track that had been widened by the passage of many men and marked out with strips of coloured cloth that I recognised from the camp outside Falkenburg, but it was at least straighter. The paladins summoned their light again, cleverly disguising the origin by casting it upon the hastily whittled branch masquerading as Tatyana’s staff.
The city came into view shortly after, and it wasn’t the size or bustle of the camp that brought us to a silent halt, but rather the silver-white glow that flashed and flickered in the mist draped across the city like a great blanket, filling the space between the towers and buildings in a milky radiance.
‘God’s teeth,’ whispered Tatyana. ‘We’re going in there?’
I nodded, ignoring the crunch in my neck. ‘Right into the heart of it.’
I could smell the growing tension in the men around me as the scale of what they faced grew more obvious. For my part, the camp’s complete vulnerability to an attack from the air was painfully obvious, something that set the frustration and anger to gnawing away inside me again. I would have swept in from the west as the sun set, dividing the camp with a stream of fire, then quartered it with a pass from the north. The rising flames and smoke would sow confusion and denigrate what defence they could offer, letting me swoop again and again, more or less unmolested. I had done just that before, and I felt a deep sense of satisfaction that I could now at least remember where and when. I felt the scrape of my teeth against the inside of my lips and I realised I was smiling.
‘What’s so funny?’ asked Tatyana, her voice bringing me back to the present.
‘Just revisiting old memories.’
‘You have memories of a city overrun with death-worshipping wizards?’
Images of cities in flames flashed through my mind, of streets clogged with charred bodies trapped inside red hot metal that they’d thought would protect them. ‘Not exactly.’
‘Well, shake it off. It’s time to be my prisoner, you filthy animal.’
I lunged at her suddenly, fangs gaping, and she leapt backwards.
‘You shit,’ she said, dusting herself off.
‘Remember that I’m a dangerous prisoner,’ I said. ‘If you get too close to me, I will bite you.’
‘You wouldn’t.’
‘Oh, I will. You’ll heal, remember?’ Her smile faded. ‘It will aid your mummery.’
What joviality there was faded as we drew closer to the outskirts of the camp. The paladins knew their time was coming, and they spent the last stretch saying their goodbyes and whispering prayers.
A score of Penullin soldiers stood waiting for us in the road, all fully armed and accompanied by a wizard in a robe that might have been yellow or green. Beyond them the road split into three paths, each of which vanished into the mass of tents and ramshackle paddocks that stood between us and the city proper. I tested the fake bonds that bound my wrists and found them loose enough to throw off with little effort, and even though the rope around my neck was just as loose, I really didn’t like the feel of it and would have refused to wear it had the other end been in anyone but Tatyana’s hands.
Leopold went forward, but the wizard waved him away.
‘Come here, girl,’ he called, crooking a finger at Tatyana.
‘Fuck,’ she whispered under her breath. She was still holding my neck rope so I followed after her, trying to look as I imagined a prisoner should.
‘What’s all this?’ the wizard asked, gesturing widely.
‘What does it look like? We’re bringing a prisoner in.’
He grabbed a bundle of paper from one of the soldiers and stared at it. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Sharon.’ She folded her arms around her staff as he stared at her. ‘The Orange.’
‘Sharon the Orange,’ he repeated. As he spoke, he clicked his fingers and the soldiers who had been watching suddenly straightened and took hold of their weapons. ‘I’ve never heard of you. Whose class were you in?’
‘You’re certainly not in mine,’ she said, earning a brief laugh from one of the soldiers.
‘Where’s your staff, Sharon the Orange?’ His own staff flickered with sudden light as he activated a latent spell, and I heard the shuffle of the paladins spreading out behind me, something that the soldiers must have noticed too because the scent of aggression in the air strengthened considerably. They weren’t the only ones either. I could see several more men watching from the nearby tents.
‘I lost it capturing that,’ said Tatyana, pointing at me. ‘Do you think I’m carrying this fucking stick because I want to?’
‘How convenient,’ he said. ‘Well, I’m sure you could cast something without it, yes? How about Jen’s Pendulum? That’s simple enough, even for someone with such a thick Krandin accent.’
I had woken my sorcery some time before we had arrived at this blockade, and as he issued this challenge I started reshaping the power I had called on into something less fatal than what I had first intended it for. I couldn’t call out to Tatyana without ruining our ruse, so instead I sent a pulse of sorcery at her instead. I saw her twitch as it touched her, and a moment later she thrust her hand at the wizard, her fingers crooked like the claws of an arthritic eagle.
He stared at her hand, then burst out laughing. His laughter lasted as long as it took me to lift him a good six or seven feet into the air, at which point his laugh became a strangled cry.
‘What are you doing? Put me down, put me down!’
I slowly rotated him in the air, sending a number of coins and papers falling to the ground, then gently set him down on his feet again. He staggered and just managed to catch himself on one of the soldiers.
‘Satisfied?’ asked Tatyana, lowering her hand.
‘How?’ he asked. ‘How did you do that without a proper staff? You, an orange robe?’
‘I’m gifted,’ she said. ‘Now, can we pass? It’s been a long damn day, I’ve lost my staff and I just want to eat and sleep.’
‘Yes, yes. So, who is that?’ He looked at me properly for the first time. ‘What is that?’
‘Some sort of half breed,’ she said. ‘A chimera.’
Now they all stared at me, and I felt the wizard’s spell take shape before he released it. It was a simple divination spell, nowhere near powerful enough to show him that what he was looking at was real. I woke my night vision and stared at him from under my hood as his spell washed over me.
‘Goddess preserve us,’ he said, lowering his staff. ‘Where, no, how did you capture that?’
‘There’s a reason there’s only twelve of us left,’ she said.
He gestured to the guards around him. ‘First squad stays with me. The rest of you escort that thing to the pen.’
‘That’s not necessary.’
‘The Hel it isn’t,’ he said. ‘I’m not going to be the one held responsible if that gets loose in the camp.’
And so it was that we entered the Penullin camp with an armed escort clearing our path and leading us towards the nearest gate into the city. The makeshift city of tents was far larger and more imposing up close, and even with the escort, we were stopped and questioned several times.
The guards escorting us ignored Tatyana entirely, but soon fell into conversation with Leopold, who ignored their questions about which regiment he was from and kept asking them questions in turn. I was starting to feel the press of the strange magics that waited inside the city upon me, like a cold wind that I felt in my mind rather than on my skin, and so paid even less attention than normal to what he was saying.
As a result, I only became aware that things were not going as well as they might have been shortly after we started climbing the hundred or so stairs towards a city gate. It was dark by then, and the tent city was a torch lit mass on either side of us, hazy with the smoke of a hundred or more cooking fires. The soldiers stopped and turned to look at Leopold, who oozed with friendliness and camaraderie as he asked what the problem was.
‘Enough!’ said the first of them. ‘Give me the name of your captain and regiment. Now.’
As he spoke the rest of them drew their swords, and in the case of the tenth man, lifted his crossed bow. Leopold looked to Tatyana, but the soldier spoke before he could. ‘Talk to me, not the witch.’
‘You are unworthy to speak the name of my captain,’ he said, drawing his own sword in a flash of steel, his paladins following suit a heartbeat later.
The soldiers didn’t hesitate. The crossed bow thumped and the first of the paladins was flung backwards, the top of his skull opening like a trapdoor.
His brothers leaped to the attack. There were no battle cries as they crashed together, only grunts and sharp gasps. To the soldiers’ folly, they continued to ignore Tatyana, who used the distraction to untangle her sword from the harness beneath her stolen robe and then ram it into the armpit of the nearest of the enemy. He stiffened and fell, taking her sword with him. She stepped back hastily, but his death had taken the pressure off Leopold, who promptly felled another with series of short stabs of his dagger that were too rapid for me to count. He was quicker than Tatyana, which was saying something.
The fight ended quickly after that, but the damage had been done even before the first swords had clashed. There were cries of alarm all around us as the closest soldiers grabbed their weapons and began forming into a small, lethal mob. Leopold pulled the ropes from my wrists.
‘Go, both of you.’ He pointed his sword at the gates. ‘Go kill that unholy bastard.’
Tatyana retrieved her sword and stopped in front of Leopold, laying her hand on his chest.
‘Drogah shine upon you,’ she said, then stood on her toes and kissed him.
He smiled as she stepped away, and I felt his magics stirring to life as he lifted his sword and touched the hilt to his brow.
‘And upon you, my lady.’
‘Farewell, Leopold son of Sigmund,’ I said. ‘Die well.’
Somewhere nearby a horn sent three short blasts into the night.
‘Farewell, Stratus Firesky.’ He grabbed my arm as I turned away. ‘Tell me, why do you name yourself after that dread wyrm?’
I tilted my head as I met his stare. ‘Because the name is mine, and always has been.’
I could feel his magic swell beneath his skin, a wave of it washing against my own, stronger than anything he’d baited any of his words with thus far. It was divinatory, and since it was the last chance he’d ever get, I didn’t resist it this time and let him see me.
He looked at Tatyana, his eyes widening, then bared his teeth in a fierce smile. ‘Henkman and the Dragon, together once more. They will write songs of this day.’ His magic pulsed again and he pushed me away with unnatural strength. ‘Go now. Remember us.’
‘We will,’ Tatyana said, planting another brief kiss on his lips. ‘Go with God.’
I turned and began climbing the stairs, cursing my withered leg on every other step. Behind us the paladins’ prayers sounded out, eleven voices chanting as one, and I felt the sound of it defy the pressure of the magic radiating from the city.
Tatyana raced up the stairs while I stomped and plodded as fast as my legs would allow me. The gate was firmly shut, and as she reached it a silhouette rose up on the wall above and sent a heavy stone crashing to the ground next to her, followed swiftly by a spear that spun away to clatter down the slope.
I moulded a pulse of sorcery into the pattern for fire and sent it arcing up onto the wall. I didn’t hear it detonate but the screams that followed it confirmed my aim was as impeccable as ever. I caught up with Tatyana and, lacing my fingers together, put my back to the wall.
‘Go,’ I said.
She took two steps back, then jumped towards me, planting her foot in my hands. I flexed the twisted but still worthy muscles in my shoulders and arms and lifted her upwards. The wall wasn’t all that high once you were at the top of the slope that abutted it, perhaps two or three times the height of a man, and my throw was more than enough to put her on top of it.
I watched the paladins’ battle at the foot of the stairs while I waited for her to open the gate. I had expected them to be swiftly overrun, but they were pushing the soldiers back, their prayer-enhanced swords rising and falling in golden blurs, their every stroke sending another body to the ground, sometimes two. As I watched, one of the paladins burst into flame, the suddenness of it leaving little doubt that it was the work of a spell rather than a flask of oil or the like. The burning figure ran forward and threw himself into his attackers, the flames silhouetting the soldiers who hacked him to death even as he set some of them alight in his death throes.
The sound of bolts being drawn back broke the moment and I turned to see Tatyana’s face in the small window set into the door.
‘Push,’ she said.
I did, and I made sure to close and bolt it again once I was inside.