The Iron Wyrm Affair

Chapter Thirty-Eight A Life’s Work

The globe of protective sorcery shattered, sharp darts of ætheric energy slicing trembling air. Emma skidded to a stop as Llewellyn staggered, the chant faltering. She intended to reach for the hilt, wrench it free, and stab him again, and again, as many times as it took to make him cease.

She did not have the chance.

A long trailing scream behind her, a wet crunching. One more Shield had fallen. She snapped a glance over her shoulder – the two surviving Shields were fully occupied now keeping the gryphons from their throats. The lion-birds darted in, the smaller wild ones swooping down in tightening circles. There were too many of them; even a Shield of Mikal’s calibre would not keep that feathered tide back.

Britannia’s steeds would not cease until this threat was contained and their furious hunger sated.

But Emma’s immediate concern was the Sorcerer Prime collapsing to his knees before the tower. An altar – a plain slab of stone – glowed before him with hurtful dull-red ætheric charge, buckled and cracked. He struggled to hold the chant, but a gap of a single note opened and became an abyss, the complex interlocking parts shredding and peeling away.

Her throat closed. A moment’s regret flashed through her – with Sight, she could see the towering cathedral of the spell, beautiful in its wholeness for a single instant before cracks of negation raced up its walls and exploded through its windows, twisting and warping the flawless work of a Prime at his best.

A life’s work. How long had Llewellyn been planning this?

Questions could wait. She reached for the knife again, but the Prime pitched violently backwards, his body lashed by stray sorcery escaping his control. It descended upon him, his flesh jerking, force a physical body was not meant to bear searching for an outlet and grinding the cohesion of muscle and blood away.

It was not a pleasant death. It replicated the dragon-fuelled simulacrum in Bedlam, shredding him to a rag of shattered bone and blood-painted meat, his eyeballs popping and his hair smoking as the spell, cheated, took its revenge. The knife fell free, chiming on rock; she bent reflexively to retrieve it, her fingers clamping on its slippery hilt. Something else rolled loose too, and her free hand scooped it up with no direction on her part, tucking it into her skirt pocket.

Oh, Llew.

The tower dropped back into its accustomed shape with a subliminal thud. No longer a single claw of a massive reptilian limb, it was now merely a shattered pile of masonry and moss, leaning as if into a heavy wind.

Shadows wheeled overhead as the gryphons dived, screaming triumphantly, and Emma turned away from the body on its carpet of boiling blood, her hand lifting to shield her face.

The ground settled as well. Vortigern, the colourless dragon, the Third Wyrm and mighty forefather of all the Timeless children still awake in the world, sank into slumber again, the Isle on his back pulled tight like a green and grey counterpane, upon which mites scattered and pursued their little loves and vendettas.

And Emma Bannon, Sorceress Prime, wept.

The silence was as massive as the cacophony beforehand had been, and she lifted her head, wiping her cheeks.

Most of the gryphons had settled into feeding at the fallen Shields and the three lion-bird corpses. The ripping and gurgling sounds were enough to unsettle even her stomach. No doubt even Clare’s excellent digestion would have difficulty with this.

Clare. She swallowed, hard, invisible threads twitching faintly. Londinium was a fair ways away. She had ridden Khloros to bloody Wales, of all places.

One of the gryphons mantled, hopping a little closer. It was edging away from the carrion and eyeing her sidelong, its gold-ringed pupil holding a small, perfect image of a very tired sorceress armed with a toothpick.

Oh dear. Emma swallowed again, drily.

The gryphon’s indigo-dyed tongue flicked as its beak opened. It was the remaining black from the carriage, its glossy feathers throwing back the morning sun with a blue-underlit vengeance.

“Vortigern,” it whistled. “Vortigern still sleeps, sorceress.”

That was the whole point of this exercise, was it not? And now I have other matters to attend to. The hilt, slippery with blood and her sweat, was pulsing-warm in her clenched fist. “Yes.”

“We are hungry.” Its beak clacked.

“You have the dead to feast upon,” she pointed out. “And Vortigern sleeps.”

In other words, I have done you a favour. I am loyal to Britannia, as you are. Or, more plainly, Please don’t eat me.

It actually laughed at her. Its claws flexed, and the reek of blood and split bowel tore at Emma’s nose. Blood could drive the beasts into a frenzy—

The invisible threads tied to a pendant twitched again. For such a movement to reach her here meant Clare was in dire trouble indeed.

“I am sorry,” she told the gryphon, and her grip on the knife shifted. The stone at her throat, frost-cold, became a spot of ice so fierce it burned, and she knew a charter symbol would be rising through its depths, shimmering and taking form in tangled lines of golden ætheric force.

The beast laughed again, its haunches rising slightly as it prepared to spring. Its feathers ruffled, and its pupil was so dark, the gold of its iris so bright. “So am I, Sorceress. But we are hungry.”

Force uncoiled inside her. She was exhausted, mental and emotional muscles strained from the opening of her Discipline. Her sorcerous Will was strong, yes, but the toll of ætheric force channelled through her physical body dragged her down. It would slow her, just at the moment she needed speed and strength most.

I am not ready to die. She knew it did not matter. Death was here all the same, the payment demanded by Khloros. Death was inevitable.

Her fingers tightened on the knife’s hilt. Inevitable as well was Emma Bannon’s refusal to die quietly.

Even for Victrix.

The gryphon sprang.