The Copper Promise (55 page)

Silence bloomed between them then, as they stood by the table filled with maps and spells. Wydrin thought back to the first time they’d met Frith in Creos, how he’d limped into The Hands of Fate tavern like a man who lived under the constant shadow of death. It had seemed like a simple job, a quick job, sure to lead to riches and stories and
danger
, yes, but nothing they couldn’t handle. A copper promise, sealed in ale and dipped in bravado, and here they were now. Really, it was a gift of the Graces that they weren’t dead already.

‘This is really it, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘This is the end of it.’

Frith caught her eye again for the first time since he’d taken her into his arms. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Whatever happens next, this is the end.’

The mountains of Ynnsmouth rose against the horizon like a line of broken teeth tearing at the sky.
The god-peaks
, thought Sebastian, although he looked away before the names of the gods could come back to him. Instead he looked down, where silvered lakes and valleys were passing below them, and the city of Baneswatch belched smoke from a hundred fires.

‘There she is,’ called Wydrin from the back of her own griffin. She was bent low over its neck, and she was pointing to the marshland beyond the city. At first Sebastian couldn’t make out anything thanks to the thick clouds of black smoke, but a shard of sunlight caught a shivering of blue scales, and there was Y’Ruen, rising out of the fog like a gaudy snake. The western wall of the city was obscured with flames.

‘This is the place?’ called Frith. The young lord’s arms were wrapped in spells, the ends of which were flapping in the wind like banners. Those over his chest were covered in a black velvet doublet. He’d decided against armour in the end, reasoning that the weight would slow the griffin down, and if he were caught in Y’Ruen’s fire it was unlikely to save him anyway. Sebastian had made no such compromise: Bezcavar’s armour was all he could bring to the fight so he wore it despite the heat and the weight. The helm was wedged between his legs.

‘Baneswatch,’ answered Sebastian. ‘Ynnsmouth’s greatest city. God-Peak Grove is at its heart.’

‘Damn.’ Wydrin craned her neck to look. ‘Jolnir’s tunnels are sturdy, but, you know, I wouldn’t be surprised if the fire power of another god could destroy them.’

‘We’d best get moving,’ said Frith.

They flew on, and soon the southern gates of Baneswatch were in sight. There were hundreds of people there, swarming in a mass of panic and fear. Some of them appeared to be trying to flee the city, while others were fighting the brood army.

‘I see Y’Ruen brought her children to the party,’ shouted Wydrin against the wind. They were a green storm, locusts moving over a field of wheat, and where they touched the army of Baneswatch it fell back in pieces. Sebastian scanned the crowds, pushing the griffin lower and lower, until he could see the standards. Bright squares of material amongst the churning chaos, most of them the blue and red of Baneswatch, but there were others. Light blue and silver, orange and white – the colours of the Order.

‘There are knights down there. They must be the remnants of the Order!’ His throat was suddenly tight.

‘Let’s hope they can hold the gates,’ called Wydrin. ‘Perhaps if they do that—’

‘I have to go to them,’ Sebastian cut over her, already urging his griffin to land.

‘What?’

‘We stick to the plan,’ bellowed Frith. His griffin swept in to Sebastian’s left as though to shove him back into line. ‘You and Wydrin must lead the dragon away, while I—’

‘Your spell will come to nothing if God-Peak Grove is destroyed by dragon fire,’ Sebastian shouted back. ‘If I can help them hold the city, we might have a chance. It’s where I need to be.’

‘I don’t—’

‘Frith, let him go.’ Wydrin’s voice was resigned. ‘I can get the dragon where we need it.’

Sebastian looked at them both. Frith was scowling as ever, while Wydrin just looked sad. Her red hair fell across her face and was whipped back by the wind, again and again.

‘Good luck,’ he said, and meant it. ‘I will see you again.’

He turned the griffin and dropped from the sky, the freezing wind roaring in his ears. The city wall came up to meet him, and he caught a few shouts from below as some of the army within the city caught sight of what was falling towards them. There were even a few arrows flying up past him, and then he was down and dismounting. He was immediately surrounded by bristling swords and spears.

‘I’m on your side!’ He looked round at the faces under the helmets. Every one looked tired, frightened, close to panic. ‘I’m here to help.’

There was a gasp as the griffin turned bird-sized once more and flew off into the roofs behind them.

‘Who are you? What is that?’ A man stepped forward out of the crowd. He’d had a red beard once but parts of it had recently been singed off. ‘I don’t know if you’ve noticed but we’ve had rather enough of flying bloody monsters!’

As if to support his words there was a roar from the marshes beyond the walls, and an answering shout from the brood army. Sebastian swallowed hard.

‘My name is Sebastian, and I am a Ynnsmouth knight. I bring you a good sword arm,’ he drew his sword and held it up. ‘And I come to hold this city.’

The crowd began to lower their swords, looking at each other uncertainly.

‘A Ynnsmouth knight, aye? Your lot are beyond the gate, getting sliced to pieces. You want to go out there and help them, that’s fine, but we ain’t going nowhere.’

‘Will no one join me?’ Sebastian cast around the crowd. Those eyes that met his were terrified. Most looked away. ‘I will need some men just to get out of the gate.’

‘Well, you ain’t getting no help from us!’

‘He won’t need it.’

Sebastian looked down to see a slim white shape standing barefoot in the mud. Ip grinned up at him.

‘How are you here?’

‘Mysterious ways, my friend.’ She blinked, and for a second her eyes were filled with blood. Another blink and they were clear again. ‘I see that you have collected all the pieces of my armour. Do you know what happens when you wear them all together?’

‘No,’ replied Sebastian, a sour note in his voice. ‘You wouldn’t tell me.’

Her grin widened until it was a rictus, too wide and sharp for a human face.

‘Put the helm on, Sir Sebastian. Open the gate.’

The armed men were watching this exchange with increasing incredulity when there came a flurry of howls from beyond the wall, and the dragon passed directly overhead. A ball of flame as big as a loaded cart shot past them and exploded in the row of houses behind. All at once, everything was fire and chaos.

Ignoring the girl, Sebastian pulled the helm down over his head and headed for the gate. Whatever it did, he needed to get where the fighting was.

‘Remember, you kill in my name!’ called Ip. ‘The suffering you cause today is mine. And the Cursed Company are yours to command.’

It seemed to Sebastian that the sky grew dark, and he looked up, expecting to see the dragon, expecting to be boiled to pieces within the suit of armour, but there was a thick fog around him, growing darker by the moment. The crowd shouted in confusion, and the smoky fog drew in on itself, growing solid. As he watched, men began to form out of the swirling mists, grey men bristling with vicious-looking barbed armour. Every one of them was as tall as him, and every one as broad. They held huge battered broadswords and jagged metal shields like broken ice, and they lined up behind Sebastian in neat, precise lines. There had to be a hundred of them.

‘What are you?’

‘This is the Cursed Company,’ said Ip brightly. She walked up to one of the men and rapped her knuckles against his dusty breastplate. ‘They obey whoever wears my armour, and they will not stop until you tell them to. Many battles have been turned by the Cursed Company. More than history credits them for, that’s for certain.’

Sebastian peered at the nearest warrior; he wore a close-fitting helm and inside it there was a face. Of sorts.

‘These are … these aren’t men.’

‘Oh, but they were once,’ said Ip. ‘These are those left behind for the ravens. Whatever wasn’t nipped up by their clever little beaks was chucked into a pile by the victors and burned. You’ve seen that, haven’t you, Sebastian? Piles of the dead burning on the battlefield. I’ve claimed them. All through time I’ve claimed the ashes of the fallen and built them anew. No need to thank me.’

The face inside the helm was a crushed mixture of soot and bone, with the occasional ragged piece of charred flesh or pinkish sinew holding it all together. The warriors had no eyes – such tasty morsels were the first choice of any self-respecting raven – but Sebastian thought he could feel the man watching him anyway.

He turned away, and shouted at the men on the gate.

‘Open up and let us out! We fight for Baneswatch!’

The gatekeeper gestured them forward.

‘Keep close! I’ll be shutting this gate as soon as you’re through, so move quickly. I don’t want none of those green creatures getting past.’ He glanced at the army of smoke-wraiths, obviously unsure if they could hear or understand him. He caught Sebastian’s eye instead. ‘You hear me?’

‘Yes.’ Sebastian held his sword at the ready, and he couldn’t help noticing that it was the same ashen grey as those of the Cursed Company. ‘We heard you.’

The gates rumbled open, revealing the cold scrubland of the road beyond. The ground was thick with blood, and smoke rolled in ponderous clouds of black and grey, while here and there he could see the shadows of people running, fighting, dying. The shadows of people and monsters.

‘For Baneswatch!’ he called as he charged out onto the battlefield, hoping that perhaps one or two of the city’s guards would be inspired to join him, but there was no answering rally; only the eerie silence of the Cursed Company, pounding the ground next to him.

‘For me, you mean,’ whispered Ip in his ear.

‘You will get your blood, demon.’

Just before he met the throng of exhausted, ragged fighters, he glanced up. Y’Ruen was there, twisting and turning against the blue, and two black specks danced around her, looking impossibly small.

‘We’ll all be killed,’ he grunted as his blade sank home into the shoulder of the first brood warrior.

We’ll all be killed. But at least that will be an end to it.

Frith dug his fingers deep into the griffin’s feathers and urged the creature on. He and Wydrin were flying at a terrible speed now, racing to keep up with the constant movement of the dragon. The ground sped by in a blur, too fast to make out more than vague impressions of men and women fighting.

Wydrin was in front, her narrow back bent over the griffin, sword in one hand. The dragon was still circling the western gate and as yet it hadn’t noticed them. Its snout was pointing downwards, huge yellow eyes fixed on the fighting below. This close, Frith could see the glinting perfection of each scale, the wet precision of its teeth, the sheer physical weight of the creature. His stomach was clenching with a deep primal fear
– I am small and hunted
– but there was also a dizzying sense of dislocation. A creature that big, flying with such easy grace – it shouldn’t exist. He’d experienced a shadow of that feeling before when Jolnir had thrown off his mask and revealed the face of a god beneath it. The world he’d known had tipped crazily, like a boat in a storm, and shown him an underside crawling with things he didn’t understand.

The dragon snapped its jaws and flame crawled across the crowds below. The stink of sulphur and cooked flesh assaulted his nose.

‘This is it,’ cried Wydrin from just ahead of him. ‘Get ready to fly your arse off, princeling!’

He had a moment to think that they should have changed their weapons – Wydrin still brandished Glassheart, and a spear would have made more sense, of course it would – before Wydrin pressed her knees to the sides of her griffin and dived, dropping like a stone.

He could hear her shouting but couldn’t make out the words. For a terrible few seconds he thought she’d misjudged everything and was going to crash headlong into the giant beast, but she pulled up at the last minute, just behind the tangled cluster of horns that sprouted from Y’Ruen’s head. Leaning down, one hand holding fast to the griffin’s black feathers, she swiped Glassheart across the back of the dragon’s neck. The blade scraped harmlessly across the scales, but Y’Ruen gave an odd bark of surprise and whipped her head round.

It was almost all over in that instant. The great head whirled like a cobra striking and Frith heard Wydrin shout a very loud and very clear curse word, but the dragon just missed, teeth closing on empty air.

This was it, then. Frith summoned the words for Ice and Control and the Edenier leapt from his hands, crackling with energy. Two, three spheres of freezing ice crashed against the corner of Y’Ruen’s jaw, and Frith suspected that at least gave her a toothache, because she turned, baleful yellow eyes fixed on him. The enormous bat-like wings gave one huge lazy flap and she was up in the air with them. Frith clung to the griffin’s back as the wind from her flight threatened to unseat him; just being caught in the monster’s updraught was dangerous.

‘We’ve got her attention! Let’s move!’ Wydrin was flying at him and, madly, impossibly, she was laughing.

And she was right.

Y’Ruen had turned away from the burning city below and was coming after them.

Frith put his heels to the griffin and turned south. As the one who’d memorised the maps he had to lead them to Relios and beyond, which meant keeping his eyes ahead much of the time. Immediately, the skin on his back began to crawl as he imagined death eyeing his unprotected flesh.

Glancing over his shoulder he saw Wydrin circling the dragon like a bee around a hive. The dragon would dart her head forward every now and then, teeth long and yellow against a black tongue, but Wydrin was dodging like she’d been flying griffins all her life. Intermittently she would swoop in, now a bee with its stinger, and drive her sword at the dragon’s enormous bulk. And always she was moving forward, drawing the creature on. The city of Baneswatch was falling behind them.