Lord of Snow and Shadows (52 page)

“Let’s go, Gavril. We must flee for our lives while we can.”

Still no response. Had he even heard her? And if he had, would he pay any attention to her words? He seemed mesmerized by the little princess, his burning blue eyes fixed on Karila as she drew nearer.

“Gavril,” Elysia said, desperation making her voice crack. She grabbed hold of the creature’s broad, bony shoulders, hoisted her skirts about her knees, and clambered awkwardly up onto its scaly back. “We must go!”

And only now did she see that another spectator had joined the terrified crowd. Silent, still, the Magus Linnaius stood at an open window watching Gavril with eyes gray as shadows. She saw him slowly raise his hands, the skin so translucent that the finger bones could be seen beneath, skeletal hands concentrating an energy so intense she could see the air around him tremble.

Her heart began to flutter in her breast with fear. They were so close to freedom—

“Gavril!” she cried.
“Now!”

Astasia stood, helpless, speechless, as Karila walked toward the Drakhaon.

Emotions tumbled through her mind: fear, disbelief, betrayal.

Why had no one warned her that Gavril was no longer human? She had never imagined that Elysia’s veiled references to “changing” could mean this hideous metamorphosis.

She watched, as if in a dream, Elysia climb on the creature’s glittering back, saw Karila limp toward it, arms outstretched, heard Elysia cry out,
“Now!”

The Drakhaon seemed to gather itself and, unfurling its wings, leapt into the air.

Karila let out a cry. “Don’t go!”

Pulsations of light glittered across the scaly sheen of its skin: blue, green, oil-black, as it rose into the sky.

The beat of its great wings fanned gusts of burning air across the yard.

Arms still yearningly outstretched, Karila spun around to watch as the Drakhaon circled upward into the blue sky.

And then Astasia saw her freeze, stabbing her finger at an upper window.

“Linnaius!” the child screamed out, her voice raw. An old man was standing at the open window, gnarled hands raised toward the Drakhaon. “
No!
I forbid you!”

The old man paused. A look passed between them. And then slowly he lowered his hands.

“I will come back for you, Karila,” the Drakhaon’s voice drifted back, dark as drifting smoke, “one day.”

“I know.” Suddenly Karila collapsed to her knees on the cobbles, sobbing bitterly. Astasia hurried to her and flung her arms about her, holding her close, feeling her cling to her tightly.

“There, there, Kari, it’s all right, the horrid dragon has gone. It’s not going to hurt you, I’ll never let it hurt you—”

“No,” Karila gasped, raising her tear-stained face to Astasia’s, “you don’t understand. None of you understand!”

“I will come back for you.”
Astasia had heard the Drakhaon’s dark words roll around the yard. Was it a threat or a promise? Why had it spoken only to Kari with no word for her?

“I—I want to go with them,” sobbed Karila, inconsolable. “I want to fly.”

CHAPTER 41

Dazed and disoriented, Kiukiu wandered aimlessly through the ruined halls of Kastel Drakhaon.

From time to time she passed other kastel people, faces white with plaster dust and shock, sitting amid the rubble staring into nothingness. No one seemed able to help anyone else.

The merciless bombardment had ceased at the moment the Drakhaon had attacked the Tielen army.

And then she had felt them die. So many living souls extinguished in that one deadly breath of flame, so many human hopes, fears, aspirations. The rolling tide of blue fire seared the skies blinding white, and then black as starry night with glittering smoke.

Drowning, dragged into the undertow by the dying, she was washed to the very portals of the Ways Beyond. Floundering in the choking black tide, she had been forced to use all her strength to strike back toward the light.

She had opened her eyes and found it was night. Bitter-chill night. A thin wind whined through the broken walls. Her cheeks were stiff and cold with dried tears.

She must have been out of her body for many hours.

Out on the blackened hillside, she saw lantern flames flickering like corpse-candles. Drawn against her better judgment, Kiukiu found herself picking her way over rubble and broken beams toward the lanterns.

Far to the east, there was a glimmer of light on the horizon. Dawn was breaking over the battlefield. Monks from Saint Sergius moved among the ashes, searching for survivors.

Incense censers swung, burning cleansing angelsmoke; the monks sprinkled holy water over the remains, muttering prayers as they went about their task.

But in spite of the sweetly aromatic tang of angelsmoke, the lingering smell of burned flesh made her eyes water, making her want to gag. She wound her headscarf across nostrils and mouth and went doggedly on, forcing herself to look on the worst of the damage Lord Gavril had inflicted on the enemy. Every now and then she caught a glimpse of some charred remnant on the edge of the firestrike, just recognizably human: blackened toes protruding from a boot, a clenched fist burned almost to the bone.

Gavril, Gavril,
she whispered in her aching heart,
how could you have done such a terrible thing?

“You’re alive, Kiukiu!” Yephimy, leaning on his abbot’s crook, hailed her. “We feared we’d lost you.”

“I came to help,” she said, “but . . .”

“There’s nothing to be done for these wretched souls but pray.”

“Here, Lord Abbot!” The cry came from farther up the hillside.

Yephimy turned and strode upward through the last dispersing wisps of smoke. Kiukiu hitched up her skirts and followed, hurrying to keep up with the abbot’s brisk pace.

On the top of the ridge she saw the scorched canvas of a cluster of military tents, the ragged shreds of a Tielen standard still fluttering above the largest. It seemed as if the Drakhaon’s lethal breath had only singed those farthest from the cannons; all his rage had been concentrated on the heavy artillery on the lower slopes.

As she approached she saw a huddle of monks, all gathered together, murmuring in low, awed voices. Impossible, surely, that they had found any survivors from that cataclysmic firestorm?

And then she heard a groan: faint, agonized, but recognizably human.

“Ease him onto the stretcher,” Brother Hospitaler was urging. “Careful, now—”

Kiukiu crept closer.

“Water . . .” The voice was parched, barely a whisper.

She peeped between the monks as they dripped drinking water into the injured man’s mouth—and closed her eyes in horror at what the lantern light revealed. Drakhaon’s Fire had seared his face and neck. His hair was all burned away—and half his face was a red, weeping weal, as was the hand that he raised shakily as the abbot approached.

“Look,” said Brother Hospitaler in an undertone, nudging the brother at his side. “The ring. The signet ring.” Kiukiu saw them exchange glances. “What do you think, Lord Abbot?”

Yephimy gazed down at the burned man on the stretcher.

“Is it really he?” Brother Hospitaler whispered.

Yephimy did not reply, but knelt down beside the stretcher. Kiukiu saw the burned hand reach out feebly toward him.

“Yephimy.” The burned lips moved, struggling to pronounce the abbot’s name.

“Your highness,” the abbot said, “this is a sad day for Azhkendir.”

“And . . . for Tielen . . .” The words were barely audible.

“If you permit, highness, we will take you to Saint Sergius. Brother Hospitaler has salves that will relieve your pain.”

As the monks gently lifted the stretcher, the man let out an involuntary moan. Kiukiu bit her lip, trying not to imagine how intense his suffering must be as they carried him away toward a waiting cart.

“I don’t understand,” Yephimy was saying, shaking his head. “Everyone else has perished . . . save the prince. How did he survive?”

“That man is Prince Eugene?” Kiukiu said, forgetting that she was not supposed to be listening. “You’re going to heal him? After what he did to us?”

Yephimy turned to her, his eyes stern beneath bristling iron brows.

“He is a man, like any other. He needs our help. God will judge him.”

A horseman had appeared at the top of the ridge; he sat very still, scanning the desolation. The rising sun gleamed on his polished buttons, epaulettes, and boot buckles. A Tielen scout.

“Look,” Kiukiu breathed. “They’ve sent reinforcements!”

Far below she glimpsed Askold trying to muster his meager forces in the kastel yard. He too had spotted the horseman on the ridge. The few remaining
druzhina
stood shoulder to shoulder, brandishing what weapons they could lay their hands on: pitchforks, axes, mallets.

The horseman dismounted and walked slowly toward the monks. Kiukiu glared at him, at his clean, shaven face, his spotless uniform.

“Where is the prince?” the horseman asked in the common tongue.

“Here,” she said sullenly, pointing.

She watched the young man remove his tricorn and kneel down beside the prince’s stretcher. To her surprise, his face registered no emotion; he seemed as stiff and formal as if he were on parade. Could he not see how badly injured his master was?

“An urgent message from Field Marshal Karonen, highness.”

“Read it . . . to me . . . lieutenant . . .” came the faint answer.

“‘Mirom surrounded. Awaiting your instructions.’”

There came the sound of a sigh . . . almost, Kiukiu thought, a sigh of satisfaction.

“Tell Karonen . . . to . . . take the city.”

“B-but who—” Only now did the young messenger falter. “Who will command in your stead?”

“Tell him—I will meet him there—”

“And Azhkendir?” The lieutenant had not once mentioned Eugene’s regiments, though he must have smelled defeat and death in the smoke that still rose from the charred hillside. Kiukiu held her breath, wondering what the prince would say. Would he give the order for their annihilation? There was no Drakhaon to protect them now.

“There will be no . . . further . . . resistance . . .” Eugene
whispered. “And . . . no reprisals . . .”

“He’s tiring. He must rest,” interjected Brother Hospitaler.

“But not here.” The lieutenant stood up, facing the monk over the stretcher.

“Indeed not here. At our monastery, where I can tend his wounds properly.”

“Is that what his highness wishes?”

“It is . . .” came the fading voice from the stretcher.

“I will send an escort.”

Kiukiu looked up and saw that the ridge was now lined with horsemen. Eugene’s men must have been keeping silent vigil, pistols primed, in case of further trouble from Kastel Drakhaon.

The lieutenant gave a curt wave of one gray-gloved hand, and one by one, the horsemen slowly began to move toward them.

“No reprisals,” the abbot repeated sternly. “You heard what his highness said.”

“An escort, that’s all.” The lieutenant swung back up into the saddle and gave a curt wave of the hand to the waiting men to follow.

Kiukiu watched the horsemen fall slowly into line behind the monks’ cart as it rumbled away up the trail toward the forest. Last in line, Abbot Yephimy paused, gazing at her with drawn brows.

“Are you coming back to the monastery with us, Kiukiu?”

“Not yet,” she said, scanning the pale skies. “There’s someone I must wait for here.”

“He is no longer the Gavril you knew,” Yephimy said, as though reading her thoughts, his voice heavy with warning. “This creature of darkness has taken control of him.”

“Then I shall exorcise it,” she said defiantly, “and set Lord Gavril free.”

Yephimy looked at her, a long, troubled look. “I must advise you most strongly not to attempt it, child,” he said. “For no one—not even the most skilled Guslyar—has ever achieved what you intend.”

The Drakhaon flew wearily eastward toward Azhkendir. Each powerful wingstroke was an effort now; he felt the strain shudder through his whole body.

He hardly saw the winter brilliance of the blue Tielen sky or the crisp snow on the hills far below.

He saw only Astasia—and the look of revulsion and fear that had clouded her face. Now she knew him for what he truly was—a monster. Possessed by a daemon of darkness, twisted into this distortion of his true self.

She must have seen him kill. And it had not been a noble killing, no duel of equals, but the last, enraged act of a creature driven mad beyond endurance. Small wonder she had looked at him with such horror.

Now they were over the frozen sea, a frosted expanse of shimmering gray and white ice. And he was so mortally tired and heartsick he could no longer see why he should fly onward.

“Stir yourself, Kiukiu!” Sosia snapped. “There’s more people who need soup, and heaven knows, we’ve little enough to go round.”

A makeshift cooking fire had been lit in the great fireplace of the hall; little matter that the roof gaped open to the sky. Sosia, ever resourceful, had rescued vegetables and a few strips of salt pork from the rubble in the kitchen. Now soup—of a kind—was bubbling in a dented cooking pot over the hearth, and the serving girls were ladling it out into cups, bowls, even upturned
druzhina
helmets.

Kiukiu stared up into the sky overhead. Something was different. A tingle in the cold air, an iridescent glimmer, blue as frost. She shivered, the ladle drooping forgotten in one hand.

“What’s up with you now, girl?”

“He’s coming back,” she said in a whisper. “Can’t you sense it?”

“Who? Not Eugene, God forbid!” Sosia cried, clutching her shawl to her throat.

“Lord Gavril,” Kiukiu said, dropping the ladle back into the pot and running out onto the lawns.

High above the kastel grounds she saw him. At first he was no more than a swirl of dark smoke. Then, as he flew slowly nearer, she saw the shimmer of scales and the obsidian gleam of cruel, hooked talons. Now she could feel the dry heat from his body, could smell the chymical burn of his steaming breath . . .

“There’s someone with him!” The people from the kastel were hurrying out from the ruins, clustering together to watch, pointing and whispering.

Now Kiukiu could see what they were pointing at: a windswept figure clung on as the Drakhaon circled, arms clasped tight around the Drakhaon’s neck.

A woman.

The Drakhaon plummeted the last few feet, righting himself to land with a hiss of steam in the soft snow in the gardens. The woman passenger slithered from his back, collapsing to her hands and knees. The servants glanced uneasily at each other, not knowing what to do.

“Who
is
she?” Ilsi said.

Kiukiu’s eyes were fixed on the Drakhaon. She forced herself to look at the dark daemon-beast that possessed Lord Gavril, even though the sight seared her eyes with heat.

A convulsion twisted the great dragon body where it lay in the snow, the tail lashing like a whip.

The Drakhaon wrapped its shadow-wings around itself like a cocoon . . . and dwindled before her eyes, melting like smoke into its body.

A man lay sprawled in the vast winged imprint in the snow.

Kiukiu forgot all caution, all propriety, and hurtled forward, skidding to her knees in the snow at his side. He was almost naked. A few torn shreds and tatters remained of his clothes.

“Gavril?” The woman he had brought knelt on the other side, her hands reaching out to caress his forehead.

How
dare
she touch him? Kiukiu glanced jealously up at her rival, and saw from the lines scoring her pale face, the streaks of gray in her auburn hair, that the woman was of middle years. Too old, surely, to be a lover?

“Who are you?” she demanded.

“I am Elysia Nagarian,” the woman said, her voice ragged with exhaustion. “Gavril’s mother.”

Malusha stiffened, sniffing the wind, sensing trouble.

“Powerful,” she whispered. “Ah, so very powerful.” She hurried out into the monastery courtyard, eyes fixed on the sky.

“Malusha?”

She looked up and saw she had almost collided with the abbot on his way to the chapel.

“What’s wrong?” the abbot asked, bending down to steady her.