The Broken World (35 page)

‘I had hoped to have secured the palace before the princess arrives.'

‘The palace is secure, sire, I am certain of that, and Seneschal Padraig has been as keen as any to rid the ranks of his order of these heretics. You can rest assured none of them will trouble you in Candlehall again. We can
continue to vet the staff, or you can waste your time here. It's your choice.'

‘Waste my time?' Dafydd bridled at the man's impertinence.

‘There are but five people alive who can open this door, and none of them is close by.'

‘Five?'

‘Queen Beulah and her newborn, Princess Iolwen and your son Prince Iolo all carry the royal blood of the House of Balwen in their veins. That is the oldest magic and the only one that can open this door.'

‘I can count, Usel. That is only four people.'

‘Of course. There is one other who has the bloodline. Another son of both royal houses, as it happens. My order has been keeping an eye on him since he was born, but he seems to have disappeared completely.'

‘And he has a name, this cousin of mine?'

‘Oh, you've met him, sire. Young Errol Ramsbottom. He's Lleyn's son. And your Uncle Balch's too.'

The village was ablaze now. Smoke swirled through the narrow gaps between the buildings, and white flakes of wood ash floated down like snow. The stench of burning flesh filled Benfro's senses, blotting out anything else. Everywhere was destruction on a scale he couldn't quite comprehend. Ever since Melyn had crashed into his life, killed his mother and chased him halfway across Gwlad, Benfro had dreamed of taking his revenge on men. That revenge had always seen him cutting through a swathe of warrior priests, mowing them down like so much chaff until he came face to face with the hated inquisitor. Only
when he saw the light fade from Melyn's frightened, startled eyes could Benfro feel his mother was at peace.

This wasn't how he imagined revenge would be. It was carnage, pure and simple. These men had no blades of fire, they couldn't use fear as a weapon. They were as powerless as a newly hatched kitling. Tiny and frail, all too easy to kill. But they weren't like the deer in the forest, the salmon in the river. These were intelligent, thinking beings. They built houses, raised animals for food and tended fields for crops. They had hopes and desires not so different from those of dragons, when all was said and done. They weren't his enemy.

And Errol had been among them. Might be among them still.

‘Fflint!' The shout escaped from him before Benfro could stop it. The big dragon was busy tearing the front from one of the last houses still standing, head down, shoulders hunched in concentration. If he heard Benfro above the noise then he gave no sign. He looked more like an animal than the terrified people trying to flee the massacre. His sidekicks chased them down, pulling arms from sockets, biting off heads or just tearing weak flesh apart with razor-sharp talons.

‘Fflint!' This time Benfro meant it, advancing on the big dragon, no longer really thinking, just acting on instinct. Still he was ignored. The building Fflint was trying to tear down seemed more substantially constructed than the others. There was stone in its walls and the door was heavy dark oak studded with iron nails. Its refusal to give way easily was obviously causing the big dragon considerable frustration; his face was contorted in rage,
nostrils flared, chest heaving at the exertion. Close up, Benfro could see the blood smeared all over his chest scales, the char marks on his wings and the mad glint in his eye.

‘Stop this!' Benfro reached out, and at the last minute Fflint registered his presence. The blow came from nowhere. One moment the dragon was tearing at stone, the next he had sent Benfro sprawling. It was like being hit by a falling tree, and as he struggled for breath, trying to get back to his feet, Benfro saw Fflint first go back to his wall, then stop, turn and glare at him.

‘If it isn't Benfro of the Borrowed Wings. Here, let me do something about that.'

For all his size, Fflint was faster than a hawk. Before Benfro could move, the big dragon was on him, claws extended. Benfro raised his arms to protect his face, but Fflint wasn't interested in that. He ducked round, grabbed a wing, the same one Benfro had damaged in his fall from Mount Arnahi. Bright pain flashed through him as Fflint sank his talons deep into the muscle, then tore at it, wrenching with all his might.

‘Who did you borrow your wings from, Benfro? Perhaps we should give them back, eh?'

Benfro rolled. He had no option. Resist and Fflint would have torn his wing from its socket. Barely able to focus through the pain, he somehow managed to angle his wing so it slid from Fflint's talons, but he knew this was only the start of the fight. He also knew he didn't know how to fight. He'd attacked Melyn in a rage, and see how well that had gone.

‘Leave him be, Fflint! He's no threat to you.'

Benfro risked a glance to the side, seeing Cerys and Sir Gwair approaching in a hurry. Cerys still clung to the dress that Errol had worn as a disguise, which probably wasn't wise of her. Neither was approaching Fflint, not with bloodlust surging through him.

‘What's this? Little lovebirds?' Fflint spun on one foot, his tail lashing out. Cerys was obviously used to his moods, but she still caught a nasty blow to her side as she tried to get out of the way. The sight of her sprawling on the dusty ground enraged Benfro, who rounded on Fflint. The larger dragon was too quick for him still, and before he even knew what was happening, Benfro felt a hand around his throat, squeezing hard.

‘I told you to stay away from her, but you wouldn't listen. Thought you'd borrow her too, as well as your wings?'

Benfro struggled against the choking hold, raked the talons of his one good hand down Fflint's arm as he tried to break free. This only enraged the dragon more. Fflint first tightened his grip, then flung Benfro at the stone wall of the house as if he weighed nothing. He felt something crack in his undamaged wing as what little wind he had left was driven out of him. He could hardly breathe, such was the pain, and then Fflint's tail swept round and caught him under the chin. Benfro's head snapped back with the blow, clattering off the stone wall. His vision dimmed. His legs seemed to have lost all their strength. He heard a scream that sounded like it was a long way off, deep in a mountain cave, and then it felt like the house had collapsed on top of him. His back stretched horribly, muscles tearing and bones threatening to break.

‘Can you see, little Benfro?' He was dragged to his feet,
pulled off them by the impossibly strong Fflint. Benfro could hardly focus, but he saw the shape of the larger dragon's face swim in front of him. Then colours exploded in his head, his sight gone on one side as Fflint poked a needle-pointed talon into his eyeball. He screwed the other eye tight shut, fearing he would lose both even as he started to pass out with shock.

‘Pathetic. Hardly worth the effort.' The words were close, echoing in his head. It was all too quick, too violent. He couldn't understand what was happening. Benfro didn't think he could have hurt any more, but new pain lanced up his half-sized regrowing hand. Somewhere in the fog of agony and bewilderment he saw something that looked like a dragon's arm being bent and twisted a way it was never meant to go. There was a horrible cracking sound and bone gave way, thick red blood oozing out of split skin and ripped-off scales. His arm. His scales. His blood. He was going to die here, not at the hands of a man but a fellow dragon. How could this be happening? He had not avenged his mother's death yet. Had not thrown off Magog's malign influence. He hadn't found Gog, or Errol, or done any of the things he was supposed to do. How could it end here? Like this?

‘You have skills he cannot comprehend, Benfro. Use them.'

The voice was his mother's, but it was also Corwen's. Hearing them, he could almost believe he had reached the end. Was this what it meant to die? To be reunited with those you loved? Maybe it wasn't so bad after all.

‘Fight him. Use that dread curse of yours and burn off his face.'

This time the voice was unmistakable. The words were inside him and the thought of them brought Benfro renewed fear. He was weak, near death. There was no way he could fight Fflint and Magog both. And yet as he thought of the dead mage, so the world of the Grym opened up to him. One eye tight shut, the other gone, he could still see the village, the dragons all around him watching and waiting for Fflint to make the killing blow. He could see the Llinellau stretching everywhere. He could escape this madness if he could just get a moment to clear his head.

But Fflint wouldn't let up. He was throwing Benfro around like a doll now. Smashing his head against the stone wall of the one building that had denied him entry. Benfro could see the terrified people huddling inside. Errol wasn't among them, but that didn't mean they deserved to die any more than he did. What right did this arrogant creature, no better than a beast, have to kill just for fun? Just because he felt entitled or aggrieved? Just because anger was all he knew? He might call himself a dragon, might wear a dragon's form, but Fflint son of Caradoc was no more a dragon than Melyn. He deserved nothing less than the inquisitor.

Benfro opened his one remaining eye just as Fflint grabbed him once more by the throat. Sucking in what breath he could, he tried to reach for Fflint's arm, but his regrowing hand was too small to grasp it, closing weakly around the big dragon's wrist.

‘Oh, so you are still alive. Well that just makes this all the—'

Fflint didn't finish his words. With the last of his dying
strength, Benfro breathed out pure flame. It leaped from his mouth and nostrils like a living thing, enveloping Fflint in seconds. Where it touched him, his scales turned black, cracked and fell off. He screamed as his face blistered, his eyes turning white, then bursting. Released, Benfro slumped to the ground, fell back against the wall Fflint had been battering him against, watched as the larger dragon stumbled, fell, burned. His screams were terrible, the mewlings of a terrified kitling magnified a thousandfold. He beat at his head and chest and wings, trying to extinguish the fire that clung to him like cloth, flowed over him like water, devoured him more thoroughly than time.

Benfro could only watch with a mixture of horror and terrible delight as Fflint crumpled in on himself. His screams grew weaker, turning to bubbling sobs and then finally disappearing altogether. And still the fire devoured him, rendering him down to fine ash like the Fflam Gwir, the reckoning flame. How many jewels would they retrieve from the ashes? Benfro wondered. Not many. Maybe none at all.

He couldn't move, could hardly breathe. Something was loose inside him, hot pain jabbing him with every breath. The sight in his one remaining eye was fading now. Either that or night had come early. The remains of Fflint were shrinking away to nothing now, the magical flame that had devoured him guttering. For a moment Benfro thought that it might all be over, but then he saw the other dragons.

They had watched the whole spectacle, of course. He understood now: this was how they lived. Not noble
dragons, but feral beasts. No better than animals. Caradoc had been their pack leader, but he had gone. Fflint had taken over, big and fast and stupid. Now he was gone too, and they didn't like the manner of his passing.

‘What did he do?' Benfro heard the words as if his head were underwater, but he recognized the horror in them, the fear.

‘By the moon, Fflint?' This was Cerys, and the concern in her voice was a sharp blade through his hearts. Benfro let his head slump back, blinking away the blood clouding his eye. The movement sent shocks of pain through him, but sharpened his vision at the same time. The entire hunting party were staring at him now, inching closer as their collective fear was overcome by anger at what he had done. He could see it in their auras, read them as clearly as the books in Magog's mountain-top retreat. Their intentions were as plain as they were simple. He would not leave this village alive.

Tormod was the first to make a move, or perhaps it was Torquil. The two of them had always been Fflint's closest allies, hanging on his every word but lacking even his rudimentary intelligence. Whichever one it was, he came at Benfro fast, screaming in rage or more likely to overcome his fear. He wasn't much smaller than Fflint, certainly strong enough to break Benfro in half. No time to think, certainly no strength to run, barely enough to breathe, Benfro did the only thing he could think of.

He reached out for the lines and jumped.

Beulah followed the trail easily enough by the carnage Clun left in his wake. She wouldn't have been able to
keep up with him anyway, but it had taken time to stabilize Alicia, staunch the bleeding and find someone to tend her until the medics came. Only then had she summoned a couple of warrior priests and headed off after the Duke of Abervenn, aware all the time of the images she had seen in the young maid's mind, the words she had heard the kidnapper utter as he slid his long knife into her guts.

‘The Shepherd returns. There will be no more usurpers on the Obsidian Throne.'

Beulah quickened her pace across the courtyard and out of the castle keep. At least dressed for the road she could walk without having to worry about endless layers getting in the way.

‘Why were there no guards on the stairway to the royal apartment?' she demanded as Captain Celtin rushed up to greet her.

‘Your Majesty, there were three warrior priests, but they swear on their lives you came down, dismissed them and climbed into your carriage.'

‘On their lives?' Beulah raised an eyebrow, but in truth she had no stomach for punishment. They would need warrior priests in the campaign against Abervenn, so executing three of them just because they had fallen for some magic trick would be self-defeating. The laugh that escaped from her when she realized how much she had changed in a year was mirthless, and it must have been taken as an order by the captain.