The Iron Wyrm Affair

Chapter Thirty Duel and Discipline

The Major Circle about her glowed, quicksilver charter charms inside its double circuit spitting and hissing as Llewellyn threw a Word at her. She batted it aside, her throat swelling with chant, and another hole tore itself in the parlour wall, narrowly missing one of Llewellyn’s Shields as the man leapt for Mikal. Who turned, with sweet economy of motion, and drove a knife into his opponent’s throat with a sound like an axe buried in seasoned wood.

Her fellow Prime was off balance; she had always been much better at splitting her focus. He was contaminated water, seeping at the borders of her will; she countered with clean lake and ocean, and a Word shaped itself under her chant, blooming hurtful bright as fire burst through the ocean’s surface and scorched him. Llewellyn took a half-step back within his own Circle, his pale eyes narrowing, and his answering Word robbed the fire of breath, crushing blackness descending on Emma and squeezing.

She had expected that, though – it was one of his favourite tricks. A non-physical shift sideways, her hand flung out, and the curse jetted free of the gauntlets, the charter symbol sleek and deadly as it pierced veils of ætheric protections. Llewellyn almost did not hop aside in time, and his left arm whipped back, blood exploding from his shoulder. He ignored the injury, flicking his right hand forward, force expended recklessly to crack her own protections. Which shimmered, shuddered … and held, just barely.

Thick crimson, almost black in the uncertain light, flowed down Llewellyn’s arm. His frock coat was going to be absolutely ruined. A sudden burst of amusement threatened to dislodge Emma’s grip, but she recognised the attack and let it slide away, her chant taking on the sonorous ripple of a hymn. Llewellyn’s face twisted, and she was certain her own countenance was not smooth either.

It is a very good thing I am not a lady. She pressed the attack, her will bearing down, the chant rising in volume as his faltered. The blood painting his sleeve dripped, but too slowly – globules hung in the air below his contorted hand, spinning gently in mid-air. The fine hairs all over Emma’s body rose.

Llewellyn’s spine twisted. The blood slowed further, and she scented the beginning of a Major Work, hovering on the edge of probability and possibility, its structure a glory of tangled crystal lattices calcifying with pure white-hot iron.

He’s using blood to fuel it; be careful, Emma!

If she had not once been so close to Llewellyn, she would not have seen the weakness, carefully protected by a nest of thorn-burning spikes.

Do not hesitate, he had told her, over and over again, his hand on her hip, warm and safe in the nest of whatever bed they were sharing at the moment. Hesitation in a duel is loss.

She struck for the raw spike-choked gap, ætheric force turned to a shining-sharp blade that bent, a jolt pouring up her arms as her own Work mutated, responding to the shape of his. This was the critical juncture – if she misjudged, the force of her defence would be spent and his attack would strike her head-on.

But she had not misjudged.

Llewellyn’s body crumpled, flung back like a rag doll as his own Work detonated beneath him. Broken charter symbols spun, spitting sparks in every shade, and the entire house shuddered on its foundations. The limp form of the other Prime crashed into the fireplace, a jolt of blue flame searing Emma’s sensitised eyes, and two of his Shields dropped mid-motion as he shunted the backlash aside, sacrificing them.

That’s not a good si—

Mikal screamed, inarticulate rage a bright copper note against the sudden throat-cut quiet. He launched himself at her, both knives out, and Emma’s instinctive twitch to protect herself was unnecessary.

For Mikal was not striking at her. Instead, he had read the threat from Llewellyn far more accurately than she had, and reacted more quickly to boot. Frozen, her unneeded defence sparking as the stone at her throat warmed fractionally, Emma could only watch as Mikal flung himself past her –

– and straight into a scythe-storm of sorcery, as Llewellyn’s black-shrouded form birthed itself from the ruin of the fireplace. Ætheric blades blossomed in a hurtful black rosette, and blood exploded for the second time as her Shield fell.

“Hold his head up.” Emma’s hands were slick with hot blood. “There. And there.” Sorcerous force bled from her fingertips. Her earrings shivered, the charge contained in their long swinging beads delicately spinning down her neck, twining across her collarbones, and draining down her arms as she closed the rip in Mikal’s belly.

Mikal’s eyelids fluttered. Eli held his shoulders, pale cheeks spattered with blood and other fluids. Emma’s concentration did not allow wavering. She smoothed the violated flesh, charter symbols flushing red as they sank into torn meat, the language of Mending forced to obey her foreign lips shaping its syllables. She was not of the White, whose branches of Discipline encouraged healing. She was not even of the Grey, the seekers of Balance. No, Emma’s Discipline was deeply of the Black; the primal forces too great to be concerned with small things like ripped-wide skin and muscle.

At this instant, she did not care in the slightest. Mending would serve her, she had decided, and there was no room for disobedience. Flesh melded together, the spark of life within it responding with far more strength than she thought possible, and Mikal’s eyes opened fully, yellow irises glowing with unholy fire. He cried out, a long, shapeless sound full of thunder, and she sat back on her heels. Plaster and brick dust coated her face – Llewellyn had blasted straight through walls in his hurry to flee her.

And well he should, she thought, grimly. But first things first. She looked up, met Eli’s gaze. The younger Shield was wide-eyed and very pale. Childish of him, but she did not have the heart to take him to task. “He shall mend,” she said, heavily. “Listen to me very carefully, Shield.”

“I hear,” Eli answered automatically. He was well trained, she decided, but not particularly imaginative. Mikal’s eyes had closed again, and he slumped, bloody but whole, in his brother Shield’s arms. Grayson’s body was twisted wrack, the sopha it had been flung over smashed to flinders. She could not remember when during the duel that had happened.

It did not matter. Mikal was alive, and that had to be enough. Her damnable duty lay heavy on her shoulders.

“Take him to St Jemes Palace. Tell whoever is on guard duty that the Raven has sent you. You will be ushered into a certain personage’s presence. Tell that personage that Lord Sellwyth is alive and treacherous. Say, Dinas Emrys. Furthermore, tell this personage everything you have witnessed so far, word for word, and Mikal shall add his own observations. Afterwards you are to stay with that personage, and guard that personage with your very life. Are my instructions clear, Shield?”

“Very.” Eli swallowed hard. His clothes were in a sad, sorry state – all three of them were coated with ground-fine plaster, their faces garishly chalked with the stuff. “Prima, where—”

He sought to question her? “Cease your noise. I shall be pursuing Lord Sellwyth.” She paused; decided he did, after all, require more explanation. He had only just arrived in the game. “Eli, I am about to open the gates of my Discipline. Keep Mikal here until he has Mended sufficiently to travel to St Jemes.” Another pause, this one longer, while she touched the quiescent Shield’s cheek. Her fingers left a bloody smear on the fine powdery grit. “I … do not wish him to see this. Nor you,” she added, belatedly, and stopped herself from continuing. If he does not reach St Jemes whole, if you somehow damage him on the way, I shall hunt you down. And what I do to Llewellyn shall seem a mercy compared to your own suffering.

But that was not quite proper. She took her hand away and rose, shedding dust and dirt with the crackle of a cleansing charm.

The trail of destruction punched through walls, the entire house vibrating with the after-effects of a duel. Patches of plaster had turned to glass or smooth iron, chalky and inky feathers flew, irrationality transmuting the prosaic materials of the everyday into something else. Moisture dripped from the ceilings, droplets sliding upwards from the floor in some patches. The force of gravity itself was disturbed, and it would take time for the irrationality to bleed itself away through other sorceries worked in the vicinity.

She stepped through the outer wall, shaking her head slightly as the edges torn in the brick facing shivered. They had transmuted to a long red silken fringe, fluttering even in the still, fog-bound air, touching her cheeks and the backs of her hands with sinister, slippery little kisses.

Llewellyn and his remaining Shields had made for the stables. As Chancellor, Grayson had the right to have his carriage drawn by two gryphons on State occasions, as long as he defrayed the cost of their keep.

And of course, with his Shields, Lord Sellwyth could commandeer said beasts to effect his escape.

I must have frightened him very badly.

They had paused long enough to let the gryphons at the clockhorses. Shreds of horseflesh spattered the wrecked interior of the stable; the hot reek of offal and copper blood filled her nose. Shards of bone littered the floor. Grayson had possessed quite a collection, but every single clockhorse was a mess of bone, metal, and rent meat.

It does not matter, Emma. It is time.

She stood, her fists caught in her tattered skirts. The vision of Mikal’s broken body rose before her; she banished it with an effort that caused sweat to spring free. The plaster dust turned to a slick coating, and she fought to contain the force rising in her.

When she had again mastered herself, she gazed about the stable as if seeing it for the first time.

Death is here.

Very well, then. She was of the Endor, and it was high time she reminded Llewellyn Gwynnfud of the fact. Incidentally, if he reached his destination and engaged on what she suspected his next step was, her Queen would be in danger.

Emma Bannon, Sorceress Prime, did not like that idea at all. She inhaled smoothly, disregarding everything about her, turning inward to the locked and barred door of her deepest self.

And her Discipline … unfolded.

There was the lesser sorcery, charter and charm of force stored and renewed every Tideturn. Then there was Discipline, the unleashing of power that did not follow the sorcerer’s bidding. It simply was, working through the gateway suddenly opened for it until the strength of the conduit failed. When the gateway closed, the world was changed.

This, then, the danger of sorcery – a losing of oneself.

A fierce hurtful flower blooming in her, its barbs tipped with rotting dust and earth in her mouth. Leprous spots crawled over her skin, the taste of bones and bitter ash. “Aula naath gig,” she cried, a Language older even than Mending’s mellifluousness, and the chant took shape, tearing itself free of moorings inside her. Sorcery rose, pure and unconstrained.

The bones and meat and metal bedecking the stable’s interior … twitched.