Warped (27 page)

“I think we should get inside,” she whispered, reaching for his hand.

“No,” said Will, watching Gray Lily’s motions. “Best to know what we’re dealing with.”

Tessa peered into the distance. A tiny dark thing fluttered against the blue sky. “I’ve seen that before,” she said, frowning. “In the tapestry. It’s only a bird.”

The bird flew closer. It was odd, Tessa thought. Usually you couldn’t hear birds flapping like that.
Whoomp. Whoomp
. She stared with horrified fascination as it got bigger. “It’s not a bird,” she whispered nervously. “Is it?”

“It’s the dragon,” Will said.

It flew closer, its long body writhing in a serpentine trail across the sky. It looked like a giant snake on which someone had sewn gargantuan, floppy-jointed bat wings. As it swooped closer, the wings unfolded like huge, veined fans and blotted out the sky overhead. The wings could have touched both goalposts of the Prescott High School football field, Tessa thought. A gust of foul wind knocked her and Will backward as the creature hurtled past. It screamed. It was a deafening, almost human-sounding scream except for the sibilant ending—a hiss, like whistling steam.

“Dragon! Why didn’t you tell me there was a dragon?” shouted Tessa, against the roar of the wind.

“I didn’t think it necessary,” Will shouted back, helping her to her feet. “It has never troubled me before.”

The dragon flapped closer. Tessa saw a cerulean eye and the shutterlike flick of a membranous lid—the dragon was watching them as it lifted past, flying nearly straight up in the air.

“I think it wants to make up for lost time,” Tessa muttered.

The creature soared upward, its long body undulating, its spiked tail whipping the clouds. Its searing breath quivered the air into heat waves and left in its wake a blackened double contrail that looked like train tracks against the blue sky.

“Right.” Will swallowed. “I believe we’ve seen enough. Come on.” They scrambled back, running into the central tower just as a wall of fire blistered the space behind them. Tessa turned to see a ball of orange flame fill the doorway and blast toward them like a cannon shot.

She dove to the side just as the fireball roared past. The whole tower shook, and the walls were blackened where the fire had licked stone.

“Up!” Will’s hand reached for Tessa’s as she clutched the crossbow in the other and raced on, up the spiraling steps.

They came to the top of the castle’s tower, emerging onto a walkway that was girded by a chest-high wall with narrow chinks in it. Below them Gray Lily looked tiny, but Tessa sensed the repulsive dark eyes locked on them with hatred.

The dragon wheeled in the sky and approached again. It plummeted toward Tessa and Will, seeming to watch them like a raptor would its prey. At the last second it veered away, firing another blast of flames from a fanged, gaping mouth. Will and Tessa ducked and flattened their backs to the outer wall as fire shot over their heads and blasted the tower wall facing them. Will held the bronze shield over them. Tessa closed her eyes against the heat, but when she opened them she saw Will drop the red-hot shield with a curse. He shook his blistered left hand as the molten center of the metal sagged.

“Jesu,” Will breathed.

A burst of twittering erupted overhead as a flock of doves flapped out of one of the tower windows, driven from their perches. A few unlucky ones fluttered across the dragon’s path. A moment later, roasted carcasses, looking like black frizzled lumps, dropped to the ground at Will’s and Tessa’s feet.

The poor things
, Tessa thought, but there was no time for more because she saw Will stand up, draw his bow and fire a shot at the dragon, all in one fluid, lethal motion.

The air split with the dragon’s scream as the arrow struck the underside of one spread wing. The dragon hurtled toward them, its wounded wing folded.

“Get down!” Tessa hissed.

The dragon slammed against the tower and one of the huge, heat-cracked stones snapped free from the top of the wall and tumbled downward, planting itself deep in the ground below with a reverberating thud.

Meanwhile, Will and Tessa watched as the dragon coiled its long body and tail around the tower, clinging to the walls like a lizard with its clawed feet.

“Maybe it’s too hurt to fly,” said Tessa.

“Maybe it just wants to eat us,” retorted Will.

He pulled Tessa inside the turret and ducked down beneath one of the windows in the circular room. Outside, the dragon’s head hovered like a giant parade balloon as it passed the window opposite them. They straightened up and circled to get out of its line of fire as puffs of black breath from slitted nostrils blew ash and charred feathers into the room.

“How do you kill a dragon?” gasped Tessa. “Don’t they teach that stuff in medieval school?”

“Truth be told, mistress,” panted Will, “this would be my first.” He readied another arrow in the bow and aimed it at the far window, holding himself as taut as the bowstring itself while he waited for his target.

Slam!
The room shook as the dragon heaved itself against the tower. Tessa and Will were both thrown to the floor. Another slab of stone plummeted past the window. “He’s going to knock the tower down,” Tessa said in disbelief.

Then an idea occurred to her, and before she could talk herself out of it she hefted up the crossbow and dashed down the stairs, yelling instructions to Will as she ran.

At the bottom of the tower Tessa braced herself in the open doorway. Above her hung the dragon’s pale green belly. She aimed the crossbow and released the latch, then held her breath. She fired.
Ffft!
The recoil of the crossbow bit into her shoulder as twelve inches of sharpened iron flew into the beast’s scaly armor and was buried to the hilt.

The dragon shuddered and let out another scream. It twisted down, its huge reptilian head dropping to Tessa’s level. It didn’t let go of the tower. It wasn’t mortally wounded. Only really pissed off.

Tessa froze in the archway of the tower, facing the dragon, and for a moment she thought she could not carry out her plan. It was something she saw in the dragon’s leering eyes. Something almost human.

But then the dragon drew in a slithering breath, and Tessa knew she would be incinerated on the exhale.

“Now!” she screamed.

A handful of tiny stones and dust pattered onto the dragon’s head. The creature blinked and almost seemed to sneer at her with a triumphant flare of its nostrils. It opened its jaws just as a massive wedge of granite fell and crushed its head.

Chapter 41

T
he dragon lay sprawled on the ground, its huge green skull hollowed in by its own tombstone. It let out a last hot, hissing sigh and died. Just as with the lymerer, the dragon’s body was soon enveloped in a shroud of vapor.

Will flew down the stairs and arrived panting at Tessa’s side. He turned to Tessa, his face stricken, the skin around his lips pale white. “The next time you have a plan,” Will heaved, catching his breath, “Please. Just
don’t.
” He hugged her to him. They both watched as a coil of swampy-colored green thread drifted away and the dragon disappeared.

“Another thread,” said Will. “Another life to be gathered back in by Gray Lily.”

Tessa, covered with dust and splatters of rapidly disappearing dragon blood, was still dazed as Will pulled her tighter. She sagged against him, grateful for the support. Every muscle in her body seemed to be quivering from either exhaustion or relief. And after seeing the thread of the dragon drift away, she felt impossibly tired. What the Norn wanted her to do was more than impossible. It was hopeless.

“Now listen to me.” Will spoke into her hair, and maybe he sensed her despair; his voice was fierce and low. “I don’t care what happened before. I don’t care what happens tomorrow. You will do whatever you must. I trust you.”

The words filled Tessa with a pure, strong joy.

He drew back and looked at her. His eyes were blazing. “And I love you. I have loved you from the first time I saw you.”

“That was a long time ago,” Tessa murmured, looking into his eyes. “Some things change.”

“Some things don’t,” Will answered. He pulled her into a tight embrace and kissed her.

After their lips parted, Tessa whispered, “I love you too. Today and always.”

Will stepped back and smiled. “I think we can hold out here against whatever Gray Lily sends,” he said. He took her hand and they climbed to the tower window once more, lugging their weapons.

“I think you may be right, Esquire de Chaucy,” said Tessa. It was true; suddenly she felt that together they could handle anything. She smiled to herself. Together they would find a way. She stole a glance at Will, remembering something.
Marriage to a girl with a large estate, soldiering or the priesthood
.

“By the way,” she said. “I was thinking about those three career choices you mentioned?”

“Hmm?”

“You can forget about two of them.”

“Which two?” he asked, cocking an eyebrow.

“You figure it out.”

“Ah.”

They came to the window and looked out at the grassy expanse. Tessa’s smile faded.

Down below, Gray Lily was no longer alone. Beside her stood a man dressed all in black. Tessa could see a frizz of reddish hair and a pale, freckled scalp.

“Moncrieff,” she gasped. She turned to Will. “That’s Moncrieff. The lawyer.”

Will narrowed his eyes. “Really?” he remarked. He watched the man, who began to walk slowly toward them and raised his head. “He doesn’t look very . . . ”

Will trailed off and let out a low, strangled cry. Tessa looked up to see his face contorted in a disbelieving stare.

“What is it?”

Will spun away and raced down the steps. “It’s Hugh!” he shouted. “That’s my
brother!
”

Chapter 42

M
oncrieff, or the man who had once been called Hugh de Chaucy, stepped across the drawbridge and let out a weary sigh. He turned and looked across the green hills, the meadow. This place reminded him of home so much that his chest ached. He had once been Hugh de Chaucy, stocky and strong and a match for anyone, man or beast. But no longer. He was barely human anymore.

Will raced down the stairs two at a time and reached the heavy iron gate of the castle, his eyes fixed on his brother’s face. “Hugh!” he shouted as the other man approached. He pushed his arms through the grate and clasped his brother around the shoulders, pulling him into an awkward embrace.

Standing behind Will, Tessa saw the man she had known as Moncrieff freeze, his pale blue eyes wide with shock. He stared at Will through the metal bars. For a moment he only moved his mouth in silent, quivering shock. His voice, when he spoke, was nearly gibbering:

“W-Will. Will? No, by Christ, it is a ghost. More of her witchery.”

Will tightened his grasp on Hugh’s arms and gave him a shake, as if to wake him up from a dream. “It’s
me,
” Will said.

Hugh flinched in his grip. Will’s face registered surprise as he held the flabby, withered arms of his once-ox-strong brother.

“What has happened to you?” Will whispered. “How do you come to be here?”

“You are
not
my brother.” Hugh breathed the words, but he didn’t back away. He reached up and pulled Will closer to inspect his face wonderingly. “My brother is dead,” he said at last, blinking as if the sight of Will stung his red-rimmed eyes. “He was killed by a unicorn.”

Will shook his head. “It was only Gray Lily’s conjuring and lies that made it seem so. She transformed me.
I
was the unicorn.” A sharp moan of pain came from Hugh de Chaucy’s mouth, as if he had been struck.

Will lifted a hand to the fading scar on his cheek as the two men stared at each other. They were united in the memory of another encounter, one as distant as a fable yet as close as a fresh wound.

“Will.” Hugh’s voice broke on the name. “I did not know. I swear it. All this time. I didn’t know.”

“I know that, brother,” said Will. Hugh straightened almost imperceptibly, and for a moment Tessa could imagine the man he had once been. Even his speech, the inflections of his voice, seemed to now hint at the heritage he shared with Will.

“What did she do to you?” Will whispered, looking at Hugh de Chaucy’s sagging, lined face and blotchy skin. The face that, Tessa could see now, must have once been robust and strong.

Hugh’s reply was curt. “What she does to all her victims. She took my life. Or at least a piece of it. In the form of a thread by which she can control me. I have served her for centuries, and she has twisted this old body so many times that I hardly recognize it myself.”

“You’re one of the stolen threads,” said Tessa. She went a step closer to the brothers.

Hugh nodded a sober greeting to her. “Yes. But not in the tapestry. She has kept me by her side all these long years.” The statement seemed to amuse him somehow, and he let out a dry gasp of laughter. “I have served her and she’s kept me alive. But then you found the tapestry. And released the unicorn. Its loss has diminished her.” He gave Will a grim look. “She’ll do anything to get it back.”

“We should get you inside,” Will said in a low, urgent tone. He made a movement to release himself from Hugh’s embrace. But Hugh held on.

“Hugh,” said Will, staring at his brother.

Hugh looked at his hands and an expression of twisted apology crept over his face. “I’m sorry, brother,” he said softly. His fingers tightened.

Will stared at his brother in confusion and tried to jerk away. “Let me go, Hugh. We’ll raise the gate and bring you in.”

Gray Lily drifted up behind Hugh, as silent as a shadow. “Hold him,” she muttered.

“She kept you whole,” he whispered to Will. “But me—she took my thread after the hunt was done. Sh-she keeps a piece of me in her pocket.” Hugh choked out the words as he clutched his brother in a viselike grip. “I’m sorry. I have no choice.”

Tessa ran to Will and pulled as hard she could to separate the brothers, but Hugh’s grip seemed superhuman.