The Great Leveller: Best Served Cold, The Heroes and Red Country (237 page)

Lamb was at her back, but no kind of reassurance. He’d lost his coat and stood in his leather vest all scar and twisted sinew and his sword broken off halfway, splintered blade slathered in blood to his elbow.

‘Lamb?’ she whispered. He didn’t even look at her, just brushed her away with the back of his arm, black eyes picking up a fiery glimmer and fixed across that bridge, muscles starting from his neck, head hanging on one side, pale skin all sweat-beaded, blood-dotted, his bared teeth shining in a skull-grin. Shy shrank out of his way like death itself had come tapping at her shoulder. Maybe it had.

As if it was a meeting long arranged, Waerdinur drew a sword, straight and dull, a silver mark glinting near the hilt.

‘I used to have one o’ those.’ Lamb tossed his own broken blade skittering across the floor and over the edge into nothingness.

‘The work of the Maker himself,’ said Waerdinur. ‘You should have kept it.’

‘Friend o’ mine stole it.’ Lamb stepped towards one of the anvils, fingers whitening as he wrapped them around a great iron bar that lay against it, tall as Shy was. ‘And everything else.’ Metal grated as he dragged it after him towards the bridge. ‘And it was better’n I deserved.’

Shy thought about telling him not to go but the words didn’t come. Like she couldn’t get the air to speak. Wasn’t another way through that she could see, and it wasn’t as if she was about to turn back. So she sheathed her sword and shrugged her bow into her hand. Waerdinur saw it and took a few cautious steps away, light on the balls of his bare feet, calm as if he trod a dance floor rather’n a strip of stone too narrow for the slimmest of wagons to roll down.

‘Told you I’d be back,’ said Lamb as he stepped out onto the bridge, the tip of the metal bar clattering after him.

‘And so you are,’ said Waerdinur.

Lamb nudged the corpse of the dead mercenary out of his way with a boot and it dropped soundless into the abyss. ‘Told you I’d bring death with me.’

‘And so you have. You must be pleased.’

‘I’ll be pleased when you’re out o’ my way.’ Lamb stopped a couple of paces short of Waerdinur, a trail of glistening footprints left behind him, the two old men facing each other in the midst of that great void.

‘Do you truly think the right is with you?’ asked the Dragon Man.

‘Who cares about right?’ And Lamb sprang, lifting that big length of metal high and bringing it down on Waerdinur’s shield with a boom made Shy wince, leaving a great dent in the dragon design and one corner bent right back. The Dragon Man was driven sprawling, legs kicking as he scrambled from the brink. Before the echoes had faded Lamb was roaring as he swung again.

This time Waerdinur was ready, though, angled his shield so the bar glanced clear and swung back. Lamb jerked away snake-quick and the sword missed him by a feather, jerked forward snake-quick and caught Waerdinur under the jaw, sent him tottering, spitting blood. He found his balance fast, though, lashed left and right, sent sparks and splinters flying from the metal bar as Lamb brought it up to block.

Shy drew a bead but even close as she was the two old men were moving too fast – deadly, murderous fast so any step or twitch could be their last – no telling who she’d hit if she let loose the arrow. Her hand jerked about as she eased onto the bridge, trying to find the shot, always a few moments behind, sweat tickling at her flickering eyelids as she looked from the fight ahead to the void under her feet.

Waerdinur saw the next blow coming and slipped clear, nimble for all his size. The bar caught the bridge with a shrieking crash, struck sparks, left Lamb off balance long enough for the Dragon Man to swing. Lamb jerked his head away and rather’n splitting his skull the bright point left a red line down his face, drops of blood flicking into nothingness. He staggered three steps, heel slapping at the very brink on the last, space opening between the two men for just a breath as Waerdinur brought his sword back to thrust.

Shy might not have been much at waiting but when the moment came she’d always had a talent for just diving in. She didn’t even think about shooting. Her arrow flitted through the darkness, glanced the edge of the shield and into Waerdinur’s sword-arm. He grunted, point of his blade dropping and scraping harmlessly against the bridge as Shy lowered her bow, hardly believing she’d taken the shot, still less hit the target.

Lamb bellowed like a mad bull, swinging that length of metal as if it was no heavier than a willow switch, knocking Waerdinur this way and that, sending him reeling along the bridge, no chance to hit back even if he’d been able with Shy’s arrow through his arm, no chance to do anything but fight to keep his footing. Lamb kept after, tireless, merciless, driving him off the bridge and onto the ledge at the far end. One last blow tore the shield from Waerdinur’s arm and sent it tumbling away into the darkness. He stumbled against the wall, sword clattering from his limp hand, bloody now from the leaking arrow-wound.

A shape came flying from the shadows in the archway, the flash of a knife as it sprang on Lamb and he staggered back towards the brink, wrestled with it, flung it off and into the wall. A shaven-headed girl crumpled against the floor. Changed, so changed, but Shy knew her.

She threw her bow away and ran, no thought for the drop to either side, no thought for anything but the space between them.

Lamb plucked the knife out of his shoulder along with a string of blood and flicked it away like a spent toothpick, face still locked in that red smile, bloody as a new wound, seeing nothing, caring for nothing. Not the man who’d sat beside her on that wagon so many swaying miles, or patiently ploughed the field or sang to the children or warned her to be realistic. Another man, if he was a man at all. The one who’d murdered those two bandits in Averstock, who’d hacked Sangeed’s head off on the plains, who’d killed Glama Golden with his hands in the Circle. Death’s best friend indeed.

He arched back with that length of metal in his fists, cuts and notches from the Maker’s sword all angrily glinting, and Shy screamed out but it was wasted breath. He’d no more mercy in him now than the winter. All those miles she’d come, all that ground struggled over, and just those few paces left were too many as he brought the bar hissing down.

Waerdinur flung himself on top of Ro and the metal caught his big forearm and snapped it like a twig, crashed on into his shoulder, opened a great gash down his head, knocked him senseless. Lamb raised the bar again, screaming froth on his twisted lips, and Shy caught hold of the other end of it as she hurtled off the bridge, whooped as she was jerked into the air. Wind rushed, the glowing cavern flipped over, and she crashed upside down into stone.

Then all quiet.

Just a faint ringing.

Shuffling boots.

Get up, Shy.

Can’t just lie around all day.

Things need doing on a farm.

But breathing was quite the challenge.

She pushed against the wall, or the floor, or the ceiling, and the world spun right over, everything whirling like a leaf on a flood.

Was she standing? No. On her back. One arm dangling. Dangling over the edge of the drop, blackness and fire, tiny in the distant depth. That didn’t seem a good idea. She rolled the other way. Managed to find her knees, everything swaying, trying to shake the fog from her skull.

People were shouting, voices vague, muffled. Something knocked against her and she nearly fell again.

A tangle of men, shuffling, wrestling. Lamb was in the midst, face wild as an animal’s, red wet from a long cut right across it, squealing and gurgling sounds that weren’t even halfway to swearing.

Cosca’s big sergeant, Friendly, was behind him with one arm around his neck, sweat standing from his forehead with the effort but his face just faintly frowning like he was teasing out a troubling sum.

Sweet was trying to keep a grip on Lamb’s left arm, getting dragged about like a man who’d roped a crazy horse. Savian had Lamb’s right and he was croaking, ‘Stop! Stop, you mad fucker!’ Shy saw he had a knife drawn and didn’t think she could stop him using it. Didn’t even know if she wanted to.

Lamb had tried to kill Ro. All they’d gone through to find her and he’d tried to kill her. He would’ve killed Shy, too, whatever he’d promised her mother. He would’ve killed all of them. She couldn’t make sense of it. Didn’t want to.

Then Lamb went rigid, near dragging Sweet off the edge of the cliff, whites of his eyes showing under flickering lids. Then he sagged, gasping, whimpering, and he put his bloody three-fingered hand over his face, all the fight suddenly put out.

And Savian patted Lamb on the chest, drawn knife still held behind his back and said, ‘Easy, easy.’

Shy tottered up, the world more or less settled but her head throbbing, blood tickling at the back of her skull.

‘Easy, easy.’

Right arm hard to move and her ribs aching so it hurt to breathe but she started shuffling for the archway. Behind her she could hear Lamb sobbing.

‘Easy . . . easy . . .’

A narrow passageway, hot as a forge, black but for a flaring glow up ahead and glimmering spots across the floor. Waerdinur’s blood. Shy limped after, remembered her sword, managed to get it drawn but could hardly grip the thing in her numb right hand, fumbled it across to her left and went on, getting steadier, halfway to jogging now, the tunnel getting brighter, hotter still, and an opening ahead, a golden light spilling across the stones. She burst through and slid to a sudden stop, went over on her arse and lay still, propped on her elbows, gaping.

‘Fuck,’ she breathed.

They were called Dragon People, that much she knew. But she’d never guessed they actually had a dragon.

It lay there in the centre of a vast domed chamber like the big scene from a storybook – beautiful, terrible, strange, its thousand thousand metal scales dull-glistered with the light of fires.

It was hard to judge its size, coiled about and about as it was, but its tapered head might’ve been long as a man was tall. Its teeth were dagger-blades. No claws. Each of its many legs ended in a hand, golden rings upon the graceful metal fingers. Beneath its folded paper wings gears gently clicked and clattered, wheels slowly, slowly turned, and the faintest breath of steam issued from its vented nostrils, the tip of a tongue like a forked chain softly rattling, a tiny slit of emerald eye showing under each of its four metal eyelids.

‘Fuck,’ she whispered again, eyes drifting down to the dragon’s bed, no less of a child’s daydream than the monster itself. A hill of money. Of ancient gold and silver plate. Of chains and chalices, coins and coronets. Of gilded arms and armour. Of gem-encrusted everythings. The silver standard of some long-lost legion thrust up at a jaunty angle. A throne of rare woods adorned with gold leaf stuck upside down from the mass. There was so much it became absurd. Priceless treasures rendered to gaudy trash by sheer quantity.

‘Fuck,’ she muttered one last time, waiting for the metal beast to wake and fall in blazing rage upon this tiny trespasser. But it didn’t stir, and Shy’s eyes crept down to the ground. The dotted tracks of blood became a smear, then a trickle, and now she saw Waerdinur, lying back against the dragon’s foreleg, and Ro beside him, staring, face streaked with blood from a cut on her scalp.

Shy struggled up, and crept down the bowl-shaped floor of the chamber, the stone underfoot all etched with writing, gripping tight to her sword, as though that feeble splinter of steel was anything more than a petty reassurance.

She saw other things among the hoard as she came closer. Papers with heavy seals. Miners’ claims. Bankers’ drafts. Deeds to buildings long ago fallen. Wills to estates long ago divided. Shares in Fellowships, and companies, and enterprises long deceased. Keys to who knew what forgotten locks. Skulls, too. Dozens of them. Hundreds. Coins and gemstones cut and raw spilling from their empty eye sockets. What things more valued than the dead?

Waerdinur’s breath came shallow, robe blood-soaked, shattered arm limp beside him and Ro clutching at the other, Shy’s broken arrow still lodged near the shoulder.

‘It’s me,’ Shy whispered, scared to raise her voice, edging forward, stretching out her hand. ‘Ro. It’s me.’

She wouldn’t let go of the old man’s arm. It took him reaching up and gently peeling her hand away. He nudged her towards Shy, spoke some soft words in his language and pushed again, more firmly. More words and Ro hung her shaved head, tears in her eyes, and started to shuffle away.

Waerdinur looked at Shy with pain-bright eyes. ‘We only wanted what was best for them.’

Shy knelt and gathered the girl up in her arms. She felt thin, and stiff, and reluctant, nothing left of the sister she’d had so long ago. Scarcely the reunion Shy had dreamed of. But it was a reunion.

‘Fuck!’ Nicomo Cosca stood in the entrance of the chamber, staring at the dragon and its bed.

Sergeant Friendly walked towards it, sliding a heavy cleaver from inside his coat, took one crunching step onto the bed of gold and bones and papers, coins sliding in a little landslip behind his boot-heel and, reaching forward, tapped the dragon on the snout.

His cleaver made a solid clank, as if he’d tapped an anvil.

‘It is a machine,’ he said, frowning down.

‘Most sacred of the Maker’s works,’ croaked Waerdinur. ‘A thing of wonder, of power, of—’

‘Doubtless.’ Cosca smiled wide as he walked into the chamber, fanning himself with his hat. But it wasn’t the dragon that held his eye. It was its bed. ‘How great a sum, do you think, Friendly?’

The sergeant raised his brows and took a long breath through his nose. ‘Very great. Shall I count it?’

‘Perhaps later.’

Friendly looked faintly disappointed.

‘Listen to me . . .’ Waerdinur tried to prop himself up, blood oozing from around the shaft in his shoulder, smearing the bright gold behind him. ‘We are close to waking the dragon. So close! The work of centuries. This year . . . perhaps next. You cannot imagine its power. We could . . . we could share it between us!’

Cosca grimaced. ‘Experience has taught me I’m no good at sharing.’