Dead Stars - Part Two (The Emaneska Series) (18 page)

The Siren wrinkled his nose. ‘We keep our heads down and our scales in one piece. Do what we’re told. They give us beds, food, clothes. Treat us fine, save for the occasional beating. Could be worse,’ he said, drawing a few stares from the others in the line. Their colourful eyes were as sharp as pins.

Farden shook his head. ‘I suppose it could. There could be more spineless lizards like you amongst this sorry bunch,’ he said. There were murmurs of agreement from the back of the line. The man’s scales flushed a paler shade.

‘Well…’ was all he could stammer. He looked down at his shuffling feet and said no more.

Tyrfing leant close to his nephew. ‘I think it’s time we made our exit. Before they expect a rescue.’ His words may have had a cold edge, but the Arkmage was right; the stares from the others were becoming desperate. Elbows nudged. Lips mumbled. Something about a pair of saviours.

They were not in a position to be saving anyone, never mind in any great quantity. Not yet.

Farden nodded and sidled away from the line. With his eyes he tried to convey to the Sirens that they would return, just in case any of them began to try to run or shout. Luckily, they seemed to understand, and under the wincing gazes of a score or so, Farden and Tyrfing slipped into the darkness of another stairwell.

Farden stood in the milky light of the fog-strangled day. With one hand he pinched and rubbed at his eyes. With the other he held himself up against the glass of the window, trying to act casual, fresh. He was anything but.
Could this mountain have any more stairs?
he inwardly gasped.

‘Ready?’ Tyrfing was hovering nearby.

Ready to keel over
. ‘Absolutely. Let’s go.’

‘Good man.’

And on they went, padding even softer than before, as if the air was thinner as well as brighter. There were fewer shadows here, thanks to the thick windows that punctured the walls. Fewer shadows, but fewer places to hide.

Farden found himself peering down side passages and out of windows. His bearings were nowhere to be found. ‘When was the last time you were in Hjaussfen?’ he whispered.

‘The anniversary of Towerdawn’s coronation.’

Farden pulled a confused face. ‘When was that?’

‘Five years ago.’

‘How much of this rabbit warren can you remember? Do you know where we are?’

‘There must be a thousand miles of corridor and hallway in this mountain, Farden. I doubt even the oldest dragons have seen every one of them.’

‘Hmph,’ Farden sighed. He took a moment to gaze out of a nearby window, smeared with dust. It was at that precise moment that a pale dragon skimmed the mountainside, flashing past the glass. Farden leapt back, his sword almost falling from his hands. But the beast had already vanished into the fog. ‘Too close,’ he muttered.

Tyrfing took the lead, and they walked one behind the other, sidling along the hallway like crabs along a tideline. ‘How are you feeling?’

Farden rolled his eyes. ‘I wish people would stop asking me that.’

‘We’ll stop when you start feeling better.’

‘I do.’

‘This family has never been good at lying.’

‘Had enough practice.’

‘Hmm,’ Tyrfing said no more.

‘I feel tired. Like I spent the whole of yesterday exercising.’

‘Funny, that.’

‘Apart from that, my wounds are healed. My headache seems to have given up on me. The nevermar seems to have gone.’

‘Hmm,’ his uncle hummed again. ‘Sounds too soon to me. Do you feel weak? Dizzy?’

‘Only when I stand up.’

‘Memory?’

‘Coming back. Slowly,’ Farden replied, wondering if that was a good thing or not.

‘Magick?’

Farden tapped his teeth together in thought. ‘Long gone.’

‘And how that upsets me, to think you might have eradicated it for good. I hope you’re wrong.’

‘So do I,’ Farden unsure if that was a lie or not. He was still so torn over the thought of his magick. Old habits. They’re an inch from immortal at the best of times.

The mages crept on, and as they crept, they turned to making up their minds about the mountain and its madness. It was a coup, pure and simple. The Lost Clans had come to claim the warmer climes, the palace of the Old Dragon, the finer half of Nelska. Farden wondered why. From what he remembered, and that was patchy at best, the Lost Clans were not bitter about their northern habitat, nor their southern cousins. He wondered what had changed in the last decade and a half. Then he remembered Saker, and the look in his eyes as he had talked of the Old Dragon, of Farfallen. There had been no respect in them. Farden remembered a feast with dancing, witches, and boxing. He thought of Farfallen laughing and drinking and felt a pang of hurt flash across his chest.
Damn memories
, he cursed inside his head.

‘Either it was a small force that took Hjaussfen, or they’re all holed up in the palace,’ muttered Farden, changing subject for himself.

Tyrfing snorted. ‘Luckily that’s where we’re headed.’

Farden prodded him as he passed to take the lead. They had found yet another stairwell, and took the stairs as quickly as they could. ‘I’m being serious. The mountain doesn’t feel invaded. It feels abandoned.’ Farden was right. Apart from the contingent they had met in the lower levels, and the occasional echo of something distant, Hjaussfen was silent and empty. Almost eerie.

Tyrfing nodded. ‘A lot of Sirens have been forced to the mainland or Talen due to the ice. The Long Winter hadn’t given up on the north as easily. Even at the coronation the crowds were thin. The dragons were few. Painfully so. Durnus always said that Towerdawn had inherited a dying breed.’

‘That makes me sad.’

‘Let’s hope this coup isn’t the first nail in their coffin.’

‘Not if we can help it.’

Tyrfing pulled a wry face and shook his head. ‘Farden,’ he said, ‘we’re here for Elessi. Keep that in mind. Save the maid and the world first, like you said. Then you can think about the Sirens.’

Farden didn’t reply to that. He was too busy walking straight into a slumbering guard.

The eerie silence was shattered in a moment, trodden to dust. Farden fell head over heels with the guard, armour crashing onto the stone. Their armour was somehow entangled, mail caught on plate. They thrashed and flailed but neither one broke free. It was one of those moments in a fight where all technique and skill evaporates and all that is left is vicious, desperate thrashing, where both parties know that only one will emerge alive.

The guard knew it all too well. He came awake in seconds. Farden’s sword had already slid away across the stone. He recklessly pounded his opponent in the face with one hand while trying and failing to peel himself free with the other. The guard was shouting something garbled, trying to seize Farden by the throat. Leather gloves soon found an unprotected neck. The mage suddenly found himself being strangled. Farden kicked and hammered with all his might, but the guard refused to budge. He gripped even tighter. Farden’s armoured finger found an eye socket and plunged into it. The sound he elicited was akin to a wolf howling around a mouthful of broken crockery. Farden pressed and pressed, deeper and deeper, until, just as the blood was beginning to run, the man let go. As he rolled away, Tyrfing found his gap, and despatched the man quickly with a shimmering hand to the face.

Farden gingerly touched his throat. ‘And just to think,’ he wheezed. ‘You almost stayed on the boat.’

‘You’re welcome.’ Tyrfing eyed the corpse grimly. It was an ugly sight, face caved, a bloody mess of white gristle and wet crimson. He sniffed and recoiled. The guard had soiled himself in death. Such was battle. ‘We need to hide the body,’ he said, though he didn’t make a move to do so.

‘We don’t need to do anything else but disappear. You could have heard that struggle from the summit. We need to leave,’ Farden replied, getting shakily to his feet. As if to prove him right, the sounds of marching feet began to echo down the hallway. Tyrfing and Farden groaned. ‘See?’

Tyrfing waved a hand. ‘I see alright. This way!’

They scuttled off in the opposite direction of the approaching noise, as softly and as quickly as they could manage. It didn’t take long for a shout to hurtle down the corridor after them. It just made the mages run faster.

They took the first left they could find, and then the next right, and so on, zig-zagging through the granite depths as fast and as erratically as they could. When they finally stopped for breath behind a door to a modest bedroom, they found themselves wrapped in silence again.

‘Let’s not make that mistake again,’ Tyrfing said. Farden nodded, still massaging his bruised neck.

It took them over an hour to worm their way up, one level at a time. Slowly but surely, the fortress granite paled into the palace marble. The corridors lifted their rafters and shuffled their walls aside. Windows became stained and grander. Torches became more frequent. The rooms they spied grew larger. Soon they found themselves creeping through a Hjaussfen they remembered.

It was plain to see that the mountain’s lustre had flaked. Call it age or neglect since the coup, but the palace lacked some of the glow Farden could vaguely remember. Perhaps it was the distinct lack of bustle, or dragons. Whatever it was, it was sad to see.

Unfortunately for the two mages, the higher they climbed into the mountain, the more numerous the soldiers became. Soon they were running out of places to hide and rooms to duck into. It was only a matter of time before they stumbled across a guard post, or a banquet hall full of unfriendly individuals. Now and again they caught sight of a Lost Clan dragon and its rider. They sauntered about the hallways, leaking a confidence that only such an existence can summon. The riders all wore bearskin, leather, and bare chests, even the women. They looked decidedly tribal, in their furs and skins, with their rings of leather-bound teeth around their necks. The dragons were typical of the northern breed; shorter, stockier, with dark eyes and scales like knotted wood. They were the colour of wet clay, muddy snow, ivory, or thumbed charcoal. Such a contrast to the rainbow hues of the Hjaussfen dragons. Farden couldn’t help but eye their curled horns and claws as they tread the marble floors.

Soon enough, they came across another line of sorry prisoners being shepherded along. These were cuffed and chained with iron. Farden peeked out from an alcove as they passed. They were riders by the looks of their scales and colourings. More than a few of them looked badly beaten. Every so often, one would turn a head and look back the way they had come, wearing a face so uncomfortable and pained that Farden could almost taste it himself. The soldiers flanking them would bark something and jab a stick at them, and the rider would turn back. It could have been a trick of the mage’s ears, but he swore he heard something roaring somewhere in the mountain. There were echoes of hammers too, and shouting. A cacophony muffled by the rock.

‘There,’ Tyrfing whispered, as they peeked out from their alcove.

Farden squinted. ‘Where?’

Tyrfing pointed to a diamond-shaped opening in the wall a few hundred yards up ahead. ‘That archway ahead leads up into the nests. In the great hall.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Not entirely, but we will soon find out,’ Tyrfing replied. Another roar echoed through the halls, punctuation for his words. ‘We’re definitely getting close.’

That they were, and that meant soldier after soldier strolling past their hiding place. They were nestled tightly behind a pillar and a broken door. Nobody spared it a glance, but the hall was long, and open, and the soldiers too frequent to provide them with a gap. They waited, and then waited some more, but the soldiers and patrols kept on coming. Farden was busy watching the left. He was squinting like an owl. He thought he had just seen a witch.

‘I think there’s only one thing for it,’ muttered his uncle, watching the right. ‘We can’t come this close and fail now.’

‘For what?’ asked Farden, but he’d already realised. He shook his head. ‘Oh no, not again,’ he moaned.

‘Just hold your breath when it starts and then breathe slowly and calmly once it’s finished. These spells sink better into a relaxed body. It’s like warm clay. More malleable.’

‘Thanks for the tip,’ Farden grimaced. He rolled his shoulders and clicked his knuckles, as if that would help at all. ‘Fine. Do your worst.’

‘Hold still,’ Tyrfing reached out to hold his nephew’s shoulder. Farden grit his teeth as Tyrfing’s hard fingers grabbed him. It felt as though a bag of hot coals had just been strapped to his shoulder. The pain came, just as before, stayed, and then receded to a level that was just about bearable. Farden looked down at his hands and noticed the scales there were different from before, a shade of dusty lilac. They were slender too, compared to his usual. Farden looked down to see what clothes his uncle had clad him in this time, but found his view blocked by something protruding from his chest, something inside his cotton shirt. Farden frowned, confused. As he raised his hands to query the obstructions, the realisation dropped like a stone.

‘You made me a woman?!’ he hissed, whirling around.