The Written (46 page)

‘That one you loved so much.
Did you think nobody would notice Farden?’ The knife flashed
briefly and the blade weaved through the air like a cobra. ‘She was
so easy to get rid of anyway, after all the confusion of the
Ritual, and the fire finished her off for me,’ said Vice with an
evil sneer.

Something inside Farden
snapped. With a growl of pure animalistic fury he punched the air
above his head with his hands, arms tensed and shaking, fingers
bent like claws. The mage shivered and strained, as if he were
pulling on the sky, feeling power he had not felt since the
Sarunn.
A rumbling came from below the
room, slow at first, but building quickly, until the floor started
to shake and rattle violently beneath their boots. Farden’s eyes
burned with a vengeful fire, fixed on the Undermage, and he shook
as the magick pulsed in his veins as though his blood boiled. Vice
began to back away cautiously, a different expression now on his
face

Time stopped once again, just
for a second, as though a moment lasted an hour. The snow froze in
midair outside the window. The dust hovered in the room. Still and
sparkling.

Then a roar came, a deafening,
ear-splitting scream from below them that drowned out the world.
Suddenly the floor between them burst into a thousand pieces, as if
a volcano had suddenly erupted in the bar. With a blinding flash of
searing flame a white-hot pillar of fire tore up through the room
and into the ceiling. It blasted the chairs to nothing and turned
the door to splinters, ripping through the roof of the inn as if it
were no more than a pile of sticks. The bed was catapulted against
the wall and the broken fireplace was reduced to a pile of charred
bricks in seconds. Both men flew backwards and tried desperately to
escape the flames.

The noise was terrifying. The
windows exploded under the pressure and sent shards of glass
spinning around the room. The mage shielded his face and eyes with
his vambraces and scrambled up against the wall behind him to try
and get away from the heat. The column of fire now spun like a
relentless tornado and tore at the ceiling and walls with teeth
made from flames and claws of blinding heat and smoke.

But the spell was slowly
waning, Farden could feel it in his hands, and the shivering power
slowly began to subside. Between the gaps in his fingers he spied
Vice crawling over bits of bed and broken glass towards the cold
air outside. The Undermage hopped onto the windowsill and with a
quick jump he disappeared into the snow-streaked sky.

Farden gritted his teeth and
got to his feet. Tiredness was trying to creep into his arms and
legs once again but the rage in his chest stubbornly moved him
forward. He skirted the dwindling flames and dashed to the window.
The cold air slapped him hard in the face as he leant far over the
window ledge and peered into the blizzard. A crowd of people had
gathered outside the inn to gape at the fire that billowed from the
roof and snapped at the snow-laden sky. The street had been washed
of all other colours and turned a bright array of oranges and
yellows. Flames dancing on snow. Bits of charred wood and cracked
tiles were falling from clouds and littering the street like a
strange new type of precipitation. The mage scanned the gawking
faces below him and tried to steady his pounding breath. For a
brief moment Farden savoured the freezing air in his lungs, but
just then he spied a figure hurrying through the crowd, hood up and
escaping. Farden grabbed the window frame, ignored the razor-sharp
glass tearing at his palms, hoisted himself up, and with a grunt
leapt from the room to the dark street below.

The mage landed hard on the icy
cobbles and rolled to avoid breaking his ankles. He was on his feet
in seconds. Farden barged through the crowd amidst shouts and angry
cries. Vice had already broken free of the throng and was making
his way further up the street and further into the city. Farden
yelled to the bewildered people in his way. ‘Get out of the way!
Move!’

Up ahead half a dozen soldiers
rounded the corner and stood barring the way. Thunderstruck they
stared at the fire pouring from the roof of the inn. Farden shouted
to them. ‘Traitor! Stop him!’

The armoured men broke into a
run, heading towards the crowd and towards the hooded Vice. The
Undermage scowled: he wasn’t about to waste any time dealing with
mere soldiers. Vice skidded to a grinding halt and stamped his foot
hard in the snow. A wave rippled through the cobbles as if they
were marbles floating on a sea and a bubble seemed to expand
outwards from him with a dull throbbing sound. The snow scattered
in a sudden wind and the soldiers met an invisible brick wall.
Their feet flew out from under them as they crashed to the ground
with cries of shock. Panic filled the street. The crowd dispersed
in all directions. Every one of them screamed and yelled at the top
of their lungs.

But a single shout rose above
the rest. ‘Vice!’

The Undermage turned slowly and
carefully, eyes smiling with a confident air. Vice chuckled
mockingly. ‘See you at Carn Breagh,’ he yelled and he let the words
sink in. Then, as fast as lightning, the Undermage moved to grab
something from inside his cloak. Farden sprinted forward but before
he even got close there was a flash of bright gold and suddenly
Vice was gone, leaving the air to shiver and pulse behind him as if
he had folded into nothing.

‘No no no!’ Farden slipped and
fell to the cold ground and stared in horror at the empty air. The
snowfall became gentle, the wind had died, and a strange quiet fell
on the streets. The mage put his forehead to the snow for a moment,
fists clenched and frustrated, cheated of his revenge once more. He
rolled onto his knees and stayed there and all he could do was
stare dazedly at his surroundings. Feet squelched in the wet snow
as a few people ran past him, back to their homes and away from the
mayhem and the fire. Ahead the soldiers slowly picked themselves up
and shook the dizziness from their heads. One still lay
unconscious. Farden stared blankly into space and tried to calm
himself with deep breaths. Pain slowly crept back into his body and
replaced the adrenaline. The deep cuts from the glass in his hands
oozed. Farden watched the droplets of blood drip down his fingers
and land on the white snow, making little red flowers as they
seeped in and froze. He could feel people watching him, he could
hear them deciding it was better to leave him be. The fury still
burned in his eyes, he could feel it. His clothes were smoking and
charred and his face and arms were a patchwork of old scars and
fresh bruises. Farden didn’t blame them, he wouldn’t have
approached him either.

A trumpeting sound broke his
reverie but still he couldn’t move, finding himself ever more
numbed by shock. The sound of wings beating the air grew loud, and
Farden lifted his face to the orange-smeared sky, letting the
snowflakes land gently on his hot skin.

There were a few loud thuds
from behind him that shook the cobblestones under his knees, and
then a scraping of scales and claws on stone. Farden watched the
soldiers, eyes wide and nervous, back away and drag their
unconscious friend with them. They stared at something behind
Farden. A familiar booming voice called to him and echoed through
the street, and the mage sighed.

‘Farden!’

He rose, feeling his ribs
complain to him again, grumbling and arguing that he should stay
where he was in the snow. Behind him Farfallen stood with the big
red dragon Towerdawn. Only Svarta was there with them. She stood
with her arms folded and shaking her head as usual. Farfallen wore
a concerned expression on his golden face.

The mage slowly walked to meet
them. ‘I thought it wouldn’t be long until you spotted the fire,’
said Farden quietly, regarding the destruction he had caused at the
inn. It seemed like everyone had escaped the fire unharmed but
sadly the
Bearded Goat
was no more; his
favourite inn had been replaced by a smoking shell of a building,
roof half gone and fallen in, now no more than a smoking mess of
rubble, tiles, doors, and glass lying broken in the street. A
handful of patrons, the soldier, the other men, and the innkeeper,
stood shivering and confused in the snow. Every eye was fixed on
the two huge dragons that had squeezed themselves into the narrow
street. Their wings knocked gently against the drainpipes and the
gutters.

‘It seems that wherever we find
destruction and chaos, we find you,’ Svarta cast a glance at the
smouldering inn behind her.

‘It’s not like I plan these
things.’ said Farden. He wiped his bloody hands on his cloak and
shunned the pain.

‘What happened here?’ asked
Farfallen. In the light of the flames the dragon’s scales shimmered
and glittered. The mage took a deep breath and looked him squarely
in his big golden eyes. ‘It was Vice,’ he said. His words rang like
cold steel.

The Old Dragon’s spines rippled
and his back arched like a cat. ‘Vice?’ the name was a dark growl
in his throat.

‘I’ve been so blind!’ Farden
cursed and clenched his cold fists. ‘It’s been him along, this
whole time! Helyard, that book from Arfell, your Sirens,’ and the
most painful of all, ‘the Spire, all him!’

‘All this time? You never even
suspected him?’ Svarta’s face was the perfect picture of blame.

‘You’re the one who was so
eager to condemn Helyard in the first place! Don’t you dare lecture
me. Vice has been my friend for years!’ Farden eyed her with a
dangerous look, daring her to carry on talking. The Siren queen
scowled straight back at him and flicked her hair moodily.

The mage’s fingers crept to the
place where the gold disk hid in his cloak pocket. ‘I have the
Weight, I can get to him before any of you and stop him,’ he
said.

‘Don’t be a fool, you wouldn’t
even get close,’ scoffed Svarta.

‘Are you doubting me?’ snapped
Farden.

‘That’s enough!’ snarled
Farfallen impatiently. It was the first time Farden had seen the
dragon so angry. ‘We have to stop him, now, and put an end to all
of this once and for all. Evil such as him does not deserve to live
any longer. Where is he now?’

‘He escaped using a Weight,
probably Åddren’s,’ Farden kicked at snow and let the frustration
froth inside him.

‘He’s gone?’ asked
Towerdawn.

Svarta was incredulous. ‘You
let him go?!’ she spat.

Farden took a few steps forward
and squared up to her, mere inches from her scaly face. She was
unnaturally tall up close. Her yellow eyes glared straight back at
him. ‘I swear to the gods, Svarta, one more...’ he growled.

‘I said that’s ENOUGH! Both of
you back down! How does this help us now?’ Farfallen’s voice boomed
and echoed loudly, and the two slowly separated. ‘I’ll ask you
again, where is this foul worm?’

Farden sighed. ‘Carn Breagh in
Albion, north of Beinnh. It seems the bastard has deceived us once
again.’

‘What are you talking about?’
Svarta glared.

‘Don’t you realise? There is no
dark elf well near Kiltyrin and Fidlarig, there never was! Vice has
been planning to release his monster at Carn Breagh all along, not
anywhere near to where we thought he would be. By sending the army
south he’s left the Arka trapped and powerless to fight back. It
would take four or five days hard march before the other Written
could reach him.’

‘And then it would be too late,
by the sounds of it,’ offered Towerdawn. His red eyes glinted in
the gloom. The dragon sniffed the cold air. ‘Something doesn’t feel
right,’

‘We have to stop him,’ Farden
reminded them stubbornly. ‘He has taken everything from us. I will
not let him get away!’

Farfallen held up a patient
claw. ‘But how do you know he has gone to Carn Breagh?’

‘He said it just before he
escaped,’ replied the mage.

The two dragons swapped glances
and Svarta nodded quietly, deep in thought but still scowling,
staring down at the snow. ‘It doesn’t feel right,’ repeated
Towerdawn. Farfallen simply hung his head and closed his eyes and
searched for the answer. They all knew what it meant. The word
trap
silently hung unsaid in the air
around them, with more than a tinge of dread about it.

‘We have no other choice,’
muttered Farden.

‘It’s organised suicide, even
with all our dragons,’ Svarta asserted quickly.

Towerdawn’s crimson face was
etched with concern. ‘We are not seriously considering this...’ his
question drifted off.

Farfallen opened his eyes and
shook the snow from his spines. ‘The mage is right. We have no
choice. Vice must be stopped at all costs, and even if it takes our
lives we have to end this as quickly as possible.’ The Old Dragon
let the words sink in before carrying on. ‘Towerdawn, assemble all
our forces immediately. We have no time to warn the Arka and I
doubt they would believe us anyway, not after what happened with
Arkmage Helyard. Send two of our fastest, Havenhigh and another,
one to Nelska and one to the rest of the dragons in Kiltyrin, we
will need all the help we can get. If you want to see this through
Farden then you can ride with Brightshow, her rider is in Albion
with the others.’ The mage simply nodded, but Farfallen could see
the zeal burning from behind his eyes and clamping his jaw tight.
The mage looked crushed. Blood oozed from his hands and trickled
along his knuckles. He looked like he had when they had first met
after the shipwreck. Farfallen could see the little dragonscale
amulet hiding under the collar of his tunic, and he wondered how
much luck the mage had left.

‘May the gods fly alongside us
tonight,’ said the Old Dragon.

Within half an hour the dragons
were tearing through the snowy skies. Their wings pounded the
turbulent air and their tails swished and whistled across the
cloudtops. Once they had cleared the thick snow storm they soared
through the crisp air between the clouds and the stars. The bright
moon shimmered across their scales and turned everything a
different shade of silver, monochrome scales glistening under the
stars.