Dragon Queen (82 page)
Authors: Stephen Deas
‘Burned man? What does that mean?’
‘Means exactly what I said: you stink of burned man. Everything here stinks of burned man. You think I don't know the smell?’ He tapped his nose. ‘Land of dragons, remember?’ They turned a corner and he could see the sea again, right there in front of him. ‘So. Those men . . .’ He stopped.
Shapes were rising from the waves past the breaking surf. Stone giants with craggy features were breaching the water and heading for the shore. There were still boats coming in, the last stragglers. He watched as one of the creatures from the sea picked a boat up, tossed it into the air and smashed it to pieces.
‘Now there's a thing.’
Flame! Now what?
Tall as a house they were. Even Crazy Mad had stopped, frozen by the sight. The last gangs of sword-slaves were racing away from the sea, screaming and waving their arms and pointing back to the giants as if Tuuran might somehow not have seen them. And they had the right of it, he decided: running seemed like a fine idea. He turned and shot down another street, shouting over his shoulder at Crazy, ‘They had people made of stone in Xican. Where I was for a bit when they took me away. They called them golems so I suppose those things are golems too, only . . . bigger. Big golems. Really, really fucking big.’ He was talking to himself and he knew it, but sometimes talking a thing out was the only way to deal with it.
He kept running, heading for where he thought the first bridge was. Debris littered the roads again here. The windows over the streets were all smashed and broken glass crunched under his boots. Doors had been kicked in and houses were burning from the inside. Broken pieces of Taiytakei rockets lay scattered about. There was no movement except the odd soldier from the ships picking through the ruins. The tide of sword-slaves had already swept through this quarter of the city and everyone had either fled or was dead or hiding.
Crazy Mad slowed and then stopped, a weird look on his face as though he'd been taken by a sudden urge to go inside a house and find out, in the middle of the city's death, what these people who'd taken him for a slave were like. To see how they lived. Tuuran shook him and pulled him on, pointing back the way they'd come. ‘You want to wait for those stone things while they climb out of the sea or shall we keep moving?’
Crazy Mad shrugged. ‘Depends whose side they're on, doesn't it?’
‘Did you want to go and tap them on the foot and ask?’
They passed more bodies as they closed on the bridge. Taiytakei at first, men and women pulled from their houses and beaten and butchered. They caught up with the last of the looters, a group of sword-slaves carrying bulging sacks. Tuuran shouted at them to draw their swords and head for the bridge. They shook their heads and laughed at him. Disappointments, all of them, but he couldn't really hold it against them.
In a small square they passed a pile of corpses, a hundred or more thrown together and set on fire. Here and there Tuuran saw furtive faces staring at him from the shadows. City folk trapped by the roaming looters. The attacking Taiytakei had set their slaves loose on the city.
No quarter! Do your worst. Take what you will
. And after years of pent-up fury the slaves had become savage animals. These men would never forget and they'd never be slaves again, any of them. And the Taiytakei would know that . . .
It hit him then: there wouldn't be any ships coming to take them away. That was why all he'd seen so far were sword-slaves. The Taiytakei were holding back. They would sweep the city when it was all done and put down every slave they found, no matter for whom they'd fought. Or maybe they'd use their dragon. The dragon would be perfect.
Bastards!
The bodies changed. They passed more dead sword-slaves now, some riddled with arrows, others with scorch marks on their skin, and then even a few Taiytakei soldiers with their swords and armour stripped away. They were close to the bridge, three wide spans of gold-glass sitting on squat black piers and lined with a hodgepodge of huts and tiny houses. Towers on each pier rose above the main spans. At the far end another lone tower frowned over the sea. The din of fighting wafted across and flashes of lightning burst from the bridge and arced over the water. Three giant stone golems lumbering through the waves were heading for the bridge.
‘So. These golems, then,’ grumbled Crazy Mad. ‘Worked out whose side they're on yet or do I need to go and ask after all?’
Tuuran scowled at him. ‘Let's just get to the bridge before they do.’
Zafir opened her eyes. She hung sideways out of Diamond Eye's harness. The air smelled strange. Sharp and bitter. For a moment she couldn't remember who or where she was. For that moment she was in a dark room and something was coming, something terrible that turned the pit of her stomach cold and made her want to be sick with fear. She gasped for each breath.
The air filled with distant sounds. Booms. Thunder. She could smell smoke.
Evenspire. I'm at Evenspire!
The memory was like a knife. She jerked up and looked behind her, searching for the dragons that would come like rockets through the cloud, diving down at her Onyx to tear her to shreds, only it wasn't her on Onyx's back but one of her riders; and then Jehal would come and he'd be coming to save her, only he wasn't and it was the great betrayal . . .
No dragons. And the sky was a dull and cloudless blue, tinged with wafts of grey and brown smoke.
Not Evenspire
.
Diamond Eye wasn't moving. For some reason no one was running across the burning stone yard to finish her. She fumbled for the harness straps and undid them one by one, still on the edge of panic. She'd been here before.
Sinking in the water. About to drown. A man made of silver. Haven't you forgotten something?
Her mind was playing tricks on her. Her head felt full of wool. Everything was unfamiliar.
Where in the realms . . . ?
She pulled the last buckle loose and fell off Diamond Eye's back hard onto the scorched stone. Not the realms. And she was the Taiytakei's dragon-riding slave and they'd sent her to war and someone had hit her with lightning. Her armour was splintered. When she sat up to look at it, much of the glass was crazed with cracks. The gold was smeared here and there as though it had started to melt. Which wasn't possible. Was it?
She laughed.
And I'm still alive. A dragon-queen !
And then the laughter wanted to become tears because Diamond Eye still didn't move, and without a dragon what was she? Nothing; and so now they'd kill her, or else they'd dress her in a whore's silks and perfumes and pass her around among themselves, a novelty for their amusement.
Her legs were shaking. However hard she tried they wouldn't quite be still, but she managed to stand. She still had the bladeless knife she'd taken from the Watcher. No, they'd not have her again. Never.
Across the open yard, among the burning pieces of whatever this fortress had been, men were moving. They ran quickly from one piece of cover to another. She wondered why, and then streaks of bright orange fizzed overhead and landed in a crazy pattern around the far end of the fortress and exploded in balls of fire. A few fell closer. Zafir stood and watched. Flames washed over her but her dragon-scale kept them at bay.
The visor on her beautiful perfect helm was cracked.
What do I do now?
Without a dragon she was pointless. She stumbled to Diamond Eye's side. He was hot, the exertion of the battle making his scales burn. She could smell the scorching of the leather in his harness. ‘Wake up! Be alive!’ She beat on his scales with her fists.
You can't be dead. You can't! I won't allow it! WAKE UP!
But dragons didn't sleep, not really. They didn't do a lot of things that other creatures did. They didn't breathe.
Diamond Eye twitched. ‘Wake up! Wake up!’ Furious hammering against the dragon's hide. Pointless. He wouldn't even feel her. And yet perhaps he did, for as she screamed at him he lurched and raised his head and rolled to his feet, and she felt such a wave of relief and joy and . . .
Fury!
The force of it knocked her back. She stumbled and fell. Diamond Eye bared his teeth. His eyes burned and such a rage filled her head that she screamed, the only way to let even a part of it escape.
The towers! The towers!
She tried to turn her head towards the place from where the lightning had come but she could barely even move as the dragon's fury crushed all other thought like a tidal wave. Diamond Eye threw himself into the air without her.
The tower where the lightning cannon stood was glowing again, white hot. He crossed half the distance before it fired and a second bolt of lightning struck him, this time in the chest. Zafir closed her eyes and screamed at the noise and at the dragon's rage and pain as his wings faltered and he smashed to the ground again, twitching and writhing. Wings and claws and tail lashed and struggled, pulverising everything around him, wood and stone and metal alike. Then violent joy burst in her as he staggered to his feet and launched himself forward a second time. The tower was already glowing again, but not yet as brightly as before.
Another thunderbolt, another blinding light, this from the other surviving tower. Diamond Eye shrieked and went down yet again. Zafir clutched her hands to her head. He was colossal inside her, crushing everything else, pain and rage and rage and pain drenching every corner of every thought.
In the locked room, in the dark, with the fear and the dread and the pain to come . . .
The dragon lurched to his feet once more. Three giant strides. He had his head down this time, mantling his wings to cover himself. The first tower fired again. More screaming pain and furious rage. Zafir fell to her knees. A desire burst inside her. A hunger. An understanding. Diamond Eye moved suddenly this time. Not straight for the tower of the lightning cannon but behind it, with a surge of speed that made Zafir gasp.
Yes!
The second cannon fired and missed and then Diamond Eye fell upon the first, ripping it apart, savaging the metal tubes that pointed to the sky. He tore one loose, held it in his foreclaws, reared up and hurled it at the last tower, smashing it into dazzling crackling sparking shards. The burning white of the growing lightning flickered and died. Sparks ran across the stones. Now Diamond Eye launched himself into the air and fire flooded from his mouth to douse the first tower. Bright flashes popped and crackled inside it. Zafir sat and watched, stricken with awe.
Burn them! Burn them!’
Diamond Eye left the first tower a molten heap of slag and moved to the second. From somewhere close a barrage of rockets streaked towards him. A dozen of them struck, bathing him in fire. Zafir laughed and she felt the dragon laugh too.
Fire? You think to touch me with fire?
When the second tower was red and molten and dripping, Diamond Eye flew free, up and down the fortress and all around it, burning and burning, drenching it all with a fire that never stopped. He flew across the island and burned the houses and the streets and the trees and the people, and what wouldn't burn he smashed with claw and tail. When the island was nothing but flames he flew out to sea and burned the ships, all of them, every single one, with no thought to whether they were friend or foe, for now everything was the enemy. Zafir watched it all, too weak to move. A sense of completeness filled her as if the dragon had shown her, finally, something she'd been struggling to see for half her life.
The last ship burned and Diamond Eye vanished under the sea, and the waves churned and boiled and steam rose from the water. When he finally came back to her, he was still blistering. She wondered perhaps if he'd been saving her for last, but he landed before her and bowed his head to let her climb onto his back once more. Half the mounting ladder was gone, the ropes burned away. She paused for a moment, wondering what to do, but he lowered himself to the ground and lay flat. Pieces of harness hung loose, scorched ends dangling in the air, but they made their saddles well in the eyries of the Silver City. She found a hanging rope, the leg-breaker she'd refused to use this time, and hauled herself onto his back. With slow deliberate motions she found the buckles and the straps, the ones that had survived, and fastened herself to him.
‘We'll need a new harness for you,’ she whispered when she was done. Half of it was ruined but there was still enough to hold. They were whole again, both of them, and Diamond Eye felt it too. He lifted himself up and began to run, slow loping strides as though this time, at last, there was no hurry.
We are one
. Was that
her
thought? His? Both of them? She didn't know and didn't care. The dragon stretched out his wings and took to the air, circling leisurely over the island. It was burning, all of it, the sea aflame with blazing ships. Everything looked blurred and it took her a moment to realise why. She was crying. Weeping with relief and weeping for joy.
You make me whole
.
The dragon had changed something inside her – the old wound – and for the first time she could remember, she wasn't afraid any more.
A clutch of sword-slaves spilled into the street ahead, running as though they were on fire, scattering this way and that. Tuuran skittered to a stop as two men in glass and gold on fast glass sleds chased after them. The riders headed for the bridge. Lightning flashed from their wands and tiny claps of thunder followed; men screamed and fell, one after another. More sword-slaves burst out of hiding and ran the other way, straight at Tuuran and Crazy Mad and then past them. They were screaming in fear. Tuuran spat. ‘Outsiders.’
Crazy grabbed him and pulled him into the shadows of a smashed-in doorway. The riders had turned their sleds. They were coming back. ‘Let them pass.’
It was almost too tempting when there were some Taiytakei to kill at last, but Crazy Mad held him firm and Tuuran just growled. They sped past, standing on their discs of gold-glass, leaning into to the wind. It would have been so easy to run out and haul one of them down. ‘Come on then, you slaving bastards.’ But the riders didn't see them in the shadows. They raced on after the fleeing slaves, their wands full of white-hot glow. Tuuran watched them go. Probably best. The last slave he'd seen hit by wand lightning had been hurled like a doll. He hadn't just been dead, he'd looked like he'd been burned by a dragon. ‘Just a little thing,’ he muttered as Crazy Mad let him go. ‘But I'm just wondering whose side they were on.’
