They only stopped screaming once I adopted a level flight just above the clouds some way to the south. I skimmed over the tops of these, twisting the vapours into spirals as I passed, enjoying the feel of the sunlight penetrating far beyond the warmth it spread across my skin. Tatyana and Lucien sat at the base of my neck, what little weight they carried spread across the wide mantle of scale that protected it.
I had bound them to me with ropes of condensed air so that there was no way that they could fall off even had they wanted to. Of course, I hadn’t told them any of this, so the shrieking that had accompanied every other wingbeat was largely my fault, but then if I was to be ridden like some common steed gaining some amusement from it was only fair.
‘CAN YOU HEAR ME?’ she shouted, again completely unnecessarily. The bindings also extended to providing a buffer against the chilling effect of the altitude and windspeed, with the added benefit that we could converse at normal volume. And enjoy every shriek.
‘I can hear you,’ I replied, ‘There’s no need to shout.’ I couldn’t smell her, but the skin contact we shared was more than enough to tell me that she was quite emotional.
‘This is amazing! How did you ever survive being locked up in a cage?’
It was a good question, and one that deserved an honest answer. ‘I’m not sure that I would have, had your ancestors not employed priests to send me into long hibernations every few years. Looking back now, they were a kindness, even if they had been intended differently.’
‘I’m sorry, Stratus.’
‘We both are,’ shouted Lucien.
I felt her shift her weight. ‘I hate them for what they did to you. All of them.’
Coming from a Henkman, that was a touching sentiment. ‘Thank you both.’
‘So what happens now?’ asked Lucien.
A slightly desolate laugh escaped my lips. ‘For these last few years I only ever thought about killing Navar. I never expected to live past it.’ I paused. ‘And, had it not been for you, young prince, I would not have. Your reckless, stupid courage saved my life, and for that, I owe you a debt that I intend to repay.’
‘Wait,’ said Tatyana, ‘What stupid courage?’
As I angled my wings and sent us knifing through the clouds, I told her about him leaping to my defence against Navar, smiling to myself as she berated and praised him in turn. The sun had thrown a golden sheen to the patchwork of lands below, and the path of the war was a blackened strip easily seen amidst the otherwise autumnal shades.
‘It’s so beautiful,’ breathed Tatyana.
‘Where are we going?’ Lucien asked.
‘I’m taking you home, to Falkenburg. Navar is dead, but his minions are readying another of the accursed lances. I cannot allow them to complete his quest.’
I heard him mutter something, and then Tatyana burst out laughing, a raucous cawing that was so absurd that it made me laugh too.
‘What is so funny?’ I asked, shaking my head at the absurdity of it all.
‘Don’t,’ said Lucien. ‘I promise I’ll never call you Tata again.’
She laughed at that. ‘He said he has nothing to wear.’
‘Damn you, woman.’
I was still laughing at that when the remaining towers of Falkenburg came into view, and soon after that the dark mass of the Penullin army besieging it. I circled both, wide enough to avoid the clouds of smoke hung about the city, but low enough to see how the fields around the walls were churned and littered with the wreckage of war. I banked and tightened my spiral, setting the men upon the walls running in what looked very much like panic, sounding trumpets as they tried to elevate their siege bows.
I send a pulse of sorcery towards the cluster of towers that marked the location of the palace and felt Fronsac’s wards flare into life. I did it a few more times as I hovered about the city, my wings fanning the smoke into curling whorls until I was sure I had his attention. I spoke his name, infusing it with a lick of power, and projected it towards where he was surely waiting, much as I had when I had once called to him from the swamps.
‘Go back to the shadows, wyrm!’ His voice boomed at me in response, the command he had woven into every word breaking against the sorcerous shield I could now maintain without fear of depleting my strength.
‘You owe me a pie, wizard.’
I felt his spell waver, then flicker into new, probing form. I lowered the shield, enough to let him see me. ‘Stratus? This cannot be.’
‘No trick, spellweaver. I gave my word and am here to keep it.’
‘Oh my giddy gods.’
I tipped my wings and dove towards the city, the screams and blaring trumpets that announced me reminding me of another time and place, but rather than filling the streets with flame and death, I slowed and made a game of flying sideways through the streets and around the towers, tilting this way and that so that those who had not fallen into the dirt could see the prince and Tatyana howling on my back.
I hovered over the palace for a few beats, then landed in the muddy square where I had once watched Tatyana demonstrate her skill with a sword. We didn’t have to wait long before several doors banged open and a score of soldiers reeking of fear and awe filed out, their swords and spears held in quaking hands. Never one to be outdone, I flicked my tail across the cobbles, sending a shower of sparks into the air that made them flinch as one.
I felt the touch of Fronsac’s magics press against mine and turned as he stepped out into the square. His wards still burned brightly, but they dimmed as I lowered myself to let Lucien and Tatyana leap off without harm.
‘By the gods,’ he said, running forward to embrace Lucien and pulling Tatyana closer when she hesitated. I helped myself to a trough of water while they embraced and tried to talk louder than each other. Eventually Fronsac disentangled himself and walked towards me.
‘Stratus?’
‘You look like a tramp.’
He lifted his stained robes and let them drop. ‘It’s been a rough few weeks.’ He rubbed his beard. ‘Reading about the Dead Wind is an entirely different thing to seeing him in the flesh.’
I inclined my head at that.
‘I should have known. It’s a name burned into this Kingdom’s history, but I never thought…’ He fell silent and shook his head. ‘I would have never thought it could be true. How? How did you come to be here, in this city, as a man? Can you do it again? How did you do it?’
‘That is a conversation for another time.’
‘But I have so many questions.’
‘So it seems.’
He took a step closer. ‘I felt something in the ether last night, a surge in the Songlines unlike anything I have experienced before, enough to leave two of my apprentices on their backs. Was that you?’
‘It was.’ I leaned closer to him and was impressed when he didn’t flinch. ‘Navar Louw is no more, and the Lance of Aknak has been destroyed.’
‘Sweet Drogah.’ The soldiers around us had a similar reaction, and soon after the intensity of their fear weakened. ‘The Worm is really dead?’
‘Unless he’s found a way to thrive as a burning, headless skeleton, then yes.’
He leaned on his staff and looked up at me. ‘I do not know what to say.’
‘I keep my word,’ I said. ‘Although you could tell me where to find more alchemists.’
‘Alchemists? Whatever for?’
‘Can you help me?’
He opened his arms. ‘Of course. You—’
‘Give him anything he wants.’ I turned as Prince Jean emerged from another door. He and Lucien met in a frenzy of backslapping and not a few tears, and I felt my opinion of the fat little man creep up a notch. He seemed genuinely pleased to see his brother and it pleased me to know it.
‘What is it you need?’ asked Fronsac, moving closer. I told him, and he sent a soldier off to fetch ink and parchment. While we waited for his return Jean joined Fronsac in examining me, neither of them saying much as they walked along the length of me, occasionally reaching out to touch my scales, their eyes wide. The soldiers, on the other hand, were becoming more boisterous with each moment that passed without them being crushed or immolated. Several of the braver ones patted me as if I were a horse or faithful dog, but I was in a good enough mood to tolerate it.
Soon enough though, Fronsac had his ink and wrote many things on the parchment while Jean and Lucien clung to each other, talking in low but urgent tones.
‘Give it to Tatyana,’ I said when Fronsac finally offered the parchment, which seemed to surprise them both. ‘I can’t read your scratchings.’
‘Do you want me to read them to you?’ she asked.
‘You can read while I fly,’ I said. A broad smile flashed across her face and she leaped onto me without hesitation, pulling herself up using the smaller ridges along the back of my neck.
‘I will be back as swiftly as I can be. Hold the city,’ I said to Fronsac.
‘We will.’
‘And hold onto that fine hat, wizard.’
‘What?’
I released my wind spell and launched myself into the air, sending all in the square rolling across the dirt with my laughter ringing in their ears.
‘Tell me where to go,’ I said to Tatyana as I made my way out of the city, enjoying the challenge of twisting through the narrow streets, the wind of my passing tearing shutters open and canopies from their frames.
‘North, to Bucksburg.’
‘Directions will suffice. The names mean nothing to me.’
‘Oh. It’s about a day and a half’s ride, on the northern bank of the river.’
A day and half’s ride. I smiled at the thought as I climbed to just under cloud level. I could already see the town on the horizon and spread my wings to enjoy the glide.
‘It all looks so different from up here,’ she said sometime later. ‘So small.’
It didn’t sound like a question so I kept my teeth together and started a gentle descent.
‘It must have been strange for you, seeing it all from, you know, down there.’
‘Strange at the very least,’ I said. ‘Terrifying at its worst.’
‘I’m sorry you got to see us at our worst.’
‘Seeing the worst makes it easier to see the best.’ I pointed to the town. ‘We’re nearly there. Where should I land?’
She gave a strange laugh. ‘There’s a square right in the centre that should be big enough.’
‘You like to make an impression,’ I said, circling over the town and resisting the urge to roar and send the townspeople scurrying for cover.
‘It’s petty, but I’m really going to enjoy this. These bastards refused to provision us the last time we came through here.’
‘I think I understand.’
The town square was indeed large enough, and mostly empty, with all but the most stubborn inhabitants having fled. I hovered over it, the downdraft of my wings sending several abandoned wagons and carts rolling across the cobbles, as well as a few mesmerised gawkers. I released the roar that had been tickling my throat as I landed, sending the few men remaining in the square bolting for their homes, much to Tatyana’s amusement. She slid from my neck and landed neatly in front of me as I folded my wings away.
‘Wait here,’ she said, patting my snout then yelping when I snapped at her fingers.
I helped myself to some of the spilled produce as I listened to the commotion rising from the streets beyond the market. Her heartbeat was steady and she didn’t need healing so I wasn’t particularly worried. I could see faces staring at me around corners and from windows but it felt good to be looked at.
The sun had climbed a bit higher by the time that she returned, pushing a handcart while a portly man in a splendid hat decorated with feathers walked beside her, the sound of his heartbeat audible before I even saw him.
‘Stratus Firesky, may I introduce Dominic of Bucksburg, the mayor of this fine town.’ I lifted my lip, revealing my fine teeth to the mayor, who shrunk back. ‘Mayor Dominic would like to know how we’re going to pay for the damage and these fine rocks you’ve requested.’
I leaned in closer and spoke in a rumbling tone that I knew he’d feel as much as hear. ‘By not burning his town to ash or feasting on his succulent flesh.’
The man whimpered and fled as fast as his thick legs could carry him, which was a pity. Those heavily marbled limbs and round gut really would have been immensely satisfying. Tatyana fairly crowed with laughter as she pushed the cart up to my side.
‘So,’ she said, wiping her eyes, ‘what do you do with these now?’
I overturned the cart and picked through the collection. At least half of it was useless, but the other half were of a decent quality. These I swallowed whole, one after the other, taking care to ensure they went into the right stomach, while Tatyana watched with wide eyes.
‘You ate them,’ she said when I was done. Several filthy children had gathered behind her and were watching us, occasionally screeching at each other.
‘Where is the next town?’
She shooed the boldest of the children away as she took out Fronsac’s parchment. ‘Umm. I think it’s due west from here, a small village perhaps. I’ve not been there.’
With that, she climbed onto my back while I prepared my wind spell. I was nearly ready to leave when a stone hit my nose. It was neither big nor thrown well, but my nose was sensitive. I rounded on the culprit, a tall boy with ropey hair, and grabbed him before he had taken more than six strides. Men always underestimated my speed, and he was no exception. The boy squealed like a burning pig and squirted his mess out through his trousers as I lifted him from the ground, my claws dimpling his belly.
‘Stratus, don’t!’ called Tatyana, and from the tone of her voice I believe she thought I would really soil my palate with such an unworthy creature. Of course, it also drove the boy to new heights of terror and he promptly went limp in my hand. I had intended to simply crush the life from him as a lesson to the others, but I stayed my hand and dropped him into a horse trough instead.
‘The next to lift a hand against me will burn,’ I said, amplifying my already powerful voice a hundredfold, sending the animals and weak minded in earshot into paroxysms of terror, the scent of which I drank in greedily. Satisfied, I launched us into the air, scattering the children like dolls.
‘For a moment there I thought you were really going to do it,’ she said as I swooped westwards, the wind singing across my out-swept wings.
‘I was only going to crush him, not eat him.’
‘Seriously?’
‘Quite. They owe their lives and town to you.’
She didn’t say anything after that until we found the next location, which was indeed a small village, the inhabitants of which fled into the surrounding marshlands at the first sight of me, something that improved my mood considerably. We collected three more lots of minerals before the sun began sliding into the west and sent the shadows snaking across the landscape below.
‘This last one is quite far,’ she said. ‘North and east, four days ride at least, but it’s a city.’
‘I like flying by night,’ I said. ‘Especially on nights like tonight, when there are no clouds. We used to fly from dusk to dawn in summer, drifting on the thermals and naming the stars we saw.’
‘I can see the reptákon rising in the east,’ she said a while later, her voice almost too quiet to hear, and I turned to smile at her.
‘You have good eyes, my friend. You see that one over there? That we named the Centaur. Do you know this word?’
‘I do. It’s a chimera, half man and half horse.’
‘Did you learn that when you trained as a paladin?’
‘How did you know that?’
I twisted through the air in a tight loop, making her yell, then evened out again. ‘It was something that Navar said.’
She grunted. ‘It’s more disturbing that he knew that.’ She sighed loudly. ‘But yes, I volunteered.’
I was content to listen and hummed an old tune that a bard had once composed about me as the darkening lands sped by beneath us.
‘I did quite well as well. Maybe too well. The week before the oath-taking, when the head of each order came to the school, they were so condescending that it made me sick to my stomach. Sick and angry. I got into an argument with one of their recruiters.’ She paused and fidgeted against my neck. ‘It turned into a fight. A nasty one, once he took umbrage at being beaten by a girl.’
‘You killed him.’
I took her silence as confirmation. If I closed my eyes, I could almost see the images in her mind. A blurred circle of shouting men and kicked up dust, the taste of blood and anger in her mouth. A single word resonated strongly amidst it all. Witch. Even thinking it made me bare my teeth, and I shook the images from my head and found she was still talking.
‘And I was supposed to be grateful for that! As if those bastards would have done so much as boo if he’d actually done it to me. Of course, my father was livid. He hadn’t wanted to me to join in the first place, and now he’d have to offer a large dowry to convince anyone to put a son in me. I walked out not a month later.’
I settled a veil of sorcery across her as she muttered on, infusing her with a sense of calm and letting the anger that the memories had woken bleed off. Her cursing slowly subsided into melancholy and we flew on in companionable silence until the lights of the city grew visible in the distance.