The Iron Wyrm Affair

Chapter Thirty-Six An Awakening

It was not the weakness in her limbs, Emma decided. The ground itself was quivering steadily, like a pudding’s surface when the dish is jostled. Which was disconcerting, yes, but not nearly as disconcerting as the sounds from above.

Clacking razor beaks, the tearing-metal and crunching-bone cries of gryphons, hoarse male shouts, and a swelling sorcerous chant that ripped at her ears and non-physical senses. It was a complex, multilayered chant, a prepared Work of the sort that took months if not years to build. Consonants strained against long whistle-punctuated vowels and strange clicking noises, as if the peculiar personal language of the sorcerer had been married to an older, lipless, scaled tongue of dry fire and sun-basking slowness.

An Awakening chant, of course. She hauled herself up grimly, boots slipping on dew-wet rocks, vines tearing under her hands. The trick, she had discovered, was to push as hard as she could with her legs, silently cursing the extraneous material of her skirts. A minor charm to keep the skin on her hands from becoming flayed helped, but her arms shook with exhaustion, her fingers cramping and her neck afire with pain. The dragon. Hurry, Emma.

It was a surprise to reach the top of the rocky, almost vertical slope. She hauled herself up as if topping an orchard wall in the days of her Collegia girlhood, and lay full-length and gasping for a moment, protected by a screen of heavy-leafed bushes.

Shadows wheeled overhead, their wings spread. She blinked, sunlight drawing hot water from her unprotected eyes. The shapes were massive, graceful and fluid in the air, afire with jewel-toned brilliance.

Gryphons. One, two, good heavens, six, seven – Grayson did not have this many!

It did not matter. She rolled to her side, peering through the screen of brush. Exactly nothing would be achieved if she rushed into this. The chant was rising towards consummation, its broken rhythm knitting itself together, and she blinked back more swelling water, seeking to make sense of what she saw.

Lord Grayson’s gryphon carriage lay smashed against the foot of an ancient, ruined, moss-cloaked tower. The hill shuddered, the tower flexing as if its mortar were some heavy elastic substance. A milky dome of sorcerous energy shimmered around an indistinct figure, whose posture was nevertheless instantly recognisable: Llewellyn Gwynnfud, Earl of Sellwyth, his pale hair crackling with sorcerous energy and his hands making short stabbing gestures and long passes as the passages of his memorised chant demanded. A prepared Work this long and involved required such a mnemonic dance, breath and movement serving to remind the vocal chords of their next assay.

She recognised the tower, too. Dinas Emrys. That’s where I am. Very well.

The Prime’s five remaining Shields were spread out in a loose semicircle, fending off angry gryphons. Three of the gryphons – two tawny, one black – bore shattered leather and wooden bits, the traces they had used to pull the dead Chancellor’s chariot broken and useless, dragging them down. The remaining four lion-birds were slightly smaller, their plumage not as glossy. Wild, she realised with a shock.

The gryphons are loyal to Britannia; they must guess his aim. This is bloody good luck.

Two bodies – masses of fur and blood-matted feathers – lay on the stony ground. The Shields had managed to kill two lion-birds; or perhaps that black one had been lost in the chariot crash.

Emma forced herself to stillness. She breathed deeply, listening to the chant, judging the structure of the sorcerous dome protecting Llewellyn. The surface of the hill rippled, in a fashion that would make her ill if she thought too deeply on it, so she put it from her mind and concentrated.

You are alone, and the gryphons will kill you as likely as Llew; their hunger for sorcerer flesh is immense and they are angry. Then there are the Shields; of course they will view me as a threat. That they are occupied does not mean they cannot spare a moment to slay me.

Her fingers plucked at her skirts, thoughtfully. They felt something hard, plunged into the pocket, and brought forth Ludovico’s dull-bladed knife. Mikal had found a leather sheath for it, and she had tucked it away, not trusting that the Neapolitan would not find some way of reacquiring it if it were not on her person. She had never underestimated the man, and she devoutly hoped she never would.

Already sensitised. Ah. The stone at her throat chilled further, ice banding her neck and her fingers aching as if she had stepped outside on a winter’s day.

She drew the wicked, black-bladed thing from its dark home, tucked the sheath back in her skirt pocket, and worked her ragged left sleeve up. Braced herself and made a fist, then drew the razor edge lightly over the back of her forearm.

Blood sprang up in a bright line. A hiss escaped her taut lips. The knife vibrated hungrily, its dulled blade drinking in sorcerous force and the energy of spilled blood. The ground below pitched, a wave of fluid motion unreeling from the tower’s flexing spike. Rock crumbled, and she was almost thrown over the edge of the hill. She jerked forward, the sound of her crashing progress through the bushes lost in a swelling cacophony. The chant swelled afresh, becoming something akin to Mehitabel the Black’s long, slow metal-tearing hiss, and the gryphons redoubled their efforts. One of the Shields – a slim, tensile blond man – was distracted by her sudden appearance, and there was a tawny blur as one of the chariot gryphons darted forward, beak and claws striking with terrible finality. Human flesh tore like paper under iron spikes.

Emma ran, every step a jolt of silver-nailed pain up her legs, jarring her back, twisting her neck. The knife, held low, keened hungrily. She bolted for the space left by the Shield’s death, and a shadow drifted over her as one of the wild gryphons dived.

Rolling. Razor claws kissing her tangled hair, shearing a few dark curls free. She spat a Word, sorcery striking snake-quick, and the gryphon screamed as it tumbled away, a spray of bright-red blood hanging in trembling, crystalline air. Gained her feet in a lunge, the Collegia’s dancing lessons springing back to life in her abused muscles, and the shimmering globe over Llewellyn tensed, preparing itself for a sorcerous strike. The Shields cried out just as the other Prime’s chant rose to a deafening roar, sliding towards a massive organ-noise of grinding conclusion. The tower flexed still further, and it was not her imagination – the masonry was running like water, shaping itself as one nail of a gigantic claw tensed.

For Vortigern is the Great Dragon, the Colourless One, the Principia had whispered, and the Isle rides upon his back. When he wakes, half the Isle will crumble and Eire become a smoking wasteland. When Vortigern rises, Britannia dies.

But not, she thought grimly, while Emma Bannon still breathed.

She went to her knees, skirts shredding against jagged rock, gryphons screeching and one of the Shields screaming a filthy word that did not surprise her one bit. Her left hand flashed out, the bright weak dart of sorcery spattering against the globe-shield. But that was merely a distraction. The Shield nearest her bolted in her direction, his broad hand reaching for her left wrist – but it was her right hand he should have worried about. It flicked forward, the motion unreeling from her hip just as Jourdain had taught her.

Even in death, her former Shields served her well. The memory of Jourdain’s patience was a sting, there and gone, and she realised how much she missed them all.

The knife flashed, blood-sorcery on its blade shredding away as it passed through the globe-shield. The shield flushed red, but the knife itself, freed from its cage of ætheric energy, flew true, its dull blade eating a dart of spring sunlight …

… and buried itself to the hilt in Llewellyn Gwynfudd’s back.