The Dread Wyrm (Traitor Son Cycle) (90 page)

Gavin brought his mount around. Hartmut got to his feet—favouring his right leg—and drew his sword, which burst, again, into fire.

“An attack on my horse?” he said. “What a cowardly act!”

Ser Gavin laughed. “It is always comforting to take cover behind the rules, isn’t it?” he asked. “Especially if the rules always benefit
you
.”

“Dismount and face me!” Hartmut called. “Or be branded a coward.”

Gavin showed no sign of dismounting. “You mean, get off my war horse and face your magic sword?” he asked.

The brigans were throwing down their weapons.

“You make a mockery of knighthood!” Ser Hartmut said.

Ser Gavin laughed. “I think, Ser Hartmut, that you killed my parents. I think that you have hidden behind a shield of pretence for your whole life. And now, I think you’re going to die, and no one is going to call me base, or coward, or knave—no one at all. In fact, I suspect only my version of this fight will ever be heard.”

Gavin’s smile was terrible.

Then, he dismounted.

“I hold you in contempt—as a knight, and a man.” Ser Gavin tossed his reins to Jean, Bertran’s squire.

The Black Knight raised his sword, and attacked.

He struck air.

Gavin was fresh, and he simply evaded the other man’s blows. Hartmut had fought for hours. Gavin let him swing. He ran—he skipped. He mocked.

At some point, Gabriel turned his head away.

Hartmut cursed, and cursed in Gallish, and swung, and swung, and stumbled. Behind him, De La Marche’s sailors surrendered, the last force still fighting in the whole of Thorn’s host.

Someone—later, men said it was Cully—tripped the Black Knight. He fell heavily, and for a moment, he lost his sword.

His great helm had tilted across his eyes. He roared his frustration, pulled the lace with armoured fingers and threw his helmet at Ser Gavin, who casually struck it to the ground with his little steel axe. Then he stood—a big man in black armour, wearing a steel cap over an aventail.

“I thought of this fight a long time,” Ser Gavin said, conversationally. “It wasn’t you I wanted to fight. But you’ll do to make my point.”

“Shut up and fight!” Ser Hartmut barked.

“You want rules to protect you when you are weak, and no rules to slow you when you are strong.” Ser Gavin took a gliding, sideways step—

Gabriel’s heart was in his mouth.

The long sword licked out—a heavy feint, the false blow of a man who fears no riposte.

Like the flight of an arrow, Gavin stepped into distance, flicked his axe, and buried the spike in the middle of Hartmut’s face.

The Black Knight fell.

Gavin turned to his brother. “It should have been de Vrailly,” he said.

Harmodius felt the rain slowing with the tempo of the combat. He felt it when Mogon accepted the surrender of the survivors of the Dead Tree and Flint took the bended knees of the Big Nose irks. Down at Gilson’s Hole, the Hillmen pushed into the rear of the boglins—already hesitant—and broke them, and the little creatures melted away into the marsh and ravines.

Harmodius was not searching for them. He was searching for why they were still fighting, and eventually, as Ash turned high in the air, so high that the
aethereal
was thin and the
emperyeum
began, and savaged the Wyrm of Ercch; as Hartmut fell dead; as Bad Tom stepped up onto the ruined north wall of the Royal Camp, and the last fighting tapered away…

Harmodius found Thorn.

Thorn was a small shadow—in the
aethereal
, he was merely the shadow of a shadow.

“I knew you must still live,” Harmodius said. “Your bound creatures are still fighting.”

The shade of Richard Plangere, once so powerful, merely whimpered.

Harmodius took him, and tenderly—almost—
entered into his palace. Thorn lacked the strength to prevent even that. Harmodius plundered his memories ruthlessly, in a single heartbeat.

“Why?” Harmodius demanded.

“I tried to escape him,” Plangere said. “Please—my boy—let me go. All I wanted was the Wild. And the freedom to study.”

Harmodius studied the damage. “Yes, my teacher. What Ash did to you was terrible.” He frowned, and then hardened his heart. “But because of you, half the women of Alba are widows tonight. Go to hell, or wherever traitors go, and be accursed.”

“You know the truth!” Thorn screamed. “I betrayed no one!”

Harmodius shook his head in the real. “
You betrayed us all,” he said. “And not just man. If it is any consolation: I will try and undo what you have done.”

“You will merely become me, you fool.”

“
I think not,” Harmodius said. And then, like a creature of the Wild, he subsumed his foe.

High in the
aether
, Ash felt his puppet die. His foe was mortally wounded, but Ash had to turn and let him flutter to the ugly reaches of earth. He considered it all—the fire, the rain, the ruin, and the death.

He gazed upon Harmodius, who stood in the
aethereal
, untouched, and ready—deadly, powerful, and possessed of all Thorn’s knowledge, newly learned. And he looked at the others—the golden aura of the despicable Queen, tool of the false Tar, and the fallen Wyrm’s toys… He loathed them all.

But blue fire still burned, and the Wyrm had struck him twice to the bone. And that sword—some child of man had struck him with something—horrible. Even an insect bite may fester.

Ash had never been one for a reckless gamble.

So he pivoted, so high above the battlefield that only a few could detect him, and let out a long shriek of triumph and derision.

One of the two eggs, which Thorn had carried and nurtured for so long, burst open, and a cloud of black spores filled the muggy, damp air, and burst into leprous, malignant life. The other
hatched.

Ash would have chuckled, but breathing was difficult and he was too high. He turned west, and began to glide. He could do so, without effort, for a thousand miles.

The Wyrm fluttered as hard as he could, with one wing mostly shredded and the other full of holes.

It was a long way down. After a while, he spun, and lost what little control he had—lost consciousness—and fell.

Harmodius watched the victor glide away into the shadows of the far west, even as the other fell. The fall was long—the heavens were very high.

Higher than I thought.

Gabriel was
at his door, and then in his head.

“He covered us, for hours. Can you save him?”

Harmodius chuckled grimly. “Save him? I’ll dance on his grave.”

Gabriel paused. “Listen—you are the closest thing to a teacher I have had in a long time. I want you to think of something. Today we are still standing because bear and irk and man stood together. Some irks and many men are deeply evil. What of it? We—whoever we are—we choose to believe that we can stand together. The bishop is no fool, Harmodius. This is murder.”

Harmodius watched the dragon fall. “I did not kill him,” he said.

“Are we an alliance of all the peoples of this sphere?” Gabriel asked. “Or are we just another set of Powers?”

Harmodius grunted.

“Save him,” Gabriel begged.

Harmodius cursed. But he reached out, into the real, and gave without stint. He gave until trees died—gave more when Gabriel gave him his reserve.

He poured in his
ops
, and then, daring, he used Amicia’s as well.

Master Smythe awoke with his head on a linen pillow. He opened his eyes.

And met the eyes of the beautiful nun. He had never met her in human form, but he knew her well.

“I am not dead,” he said.

Amicia smiled. “No,” she said. “We saved you.” She pushed a lock of hair back inside her wimple. “Only fair, as you saved us.”

Master Smythe lay still for a long time, savouring that. He understood—with terrible clarity—what had been done to him. He had no right arm.

Not in the real.

At the next bed, another beautiful human woman stood by the bed of a tired, dark-haired man. Master Smythe knew him perfectly well. And his brother, who stood with yet another beautiful woman—dark-haired, where the woman by the Red Knight was pale.

“Gabriel,” he said. “You lived. You won.” He sat up a bit—an odd motion, unsuited to human form—and then turned and smiled at Gabriel’s brother Gavin. “Who are all these beautiful women and what do they see in you two?” he asked.

The blonde woman turned away, drawing a sharp breath.

Gabriel extended a hand and caught hers. “This is Blanche Gold, and I have no idea what she sees in me,” he said. “Stay,” he said to her. “I have no secrets from you.”

Gavin laughed. “Steady on, Blanche. I’ve never heard him say that to anyone.” He grinned. “Master Smythe, this is Lady Mary, once known as ‘Heart Heart,’ and now my betrothed.”

Master Smythe managed a wriggle that might have been taken as a bow.

The women sat. Master Smythe thought that they both had remarkable dignity, and made a note to court them. Perhaps one at a time.

He smiled.

Gabriel sat up. “I think
won
is too strong a word,” he said, ignoring his brother. “We are still standing.”

Master Smythe took a deep breath and savoured the experience of being alive. “The first alliance of the Wild and men,” he said. “That is a victory, is it not?” He paused. “Where is Ash?”

There was a tiny shudder in the fabric of the
aether
.

“Harmodius says he’s to the west.” Gabriel frowned. “That is what I mean. Nothing’s finished. The north of this kingdom is wrecked. Ten thousand are dead—and what of the Wild’s losses? Twice that.”

Blanche put a hand over his mouth. “Stop saying such things,” she said. “
We won.”

“I can’t take any joy in it,” Gabriel said. “I thought it would be over.”

Master Smythe sighed at the ways of men. “Nothing is ever
over.
” He smiled at the beautiful women, who ignored him. “We can do so much together,” Master Smythe said. He meant it to sound portentous.

The other man raised the stump of his left arm. “We could buy gloves together,” he said.

Master Smythe lay back, and laughed. “Humans are terrifying,” he said quietly.

The next day, the Red Knight—the Duke of Thrake, and the Queen’s Captain—was dressed, carefully, by his leman and his squire, and then put—somewhat ceremoniously—into those parts of his armour that were still presentable and were light enough for him to wear.

Armed, and armoured, he left the hospital tent raised by the Order of Saint Thomas, to where Ataelus, his war horse, untouched and unused through the great battle, waited for him with fondness and was rewarded with an apple.

Then, with some help from Bad Tom, Toby and Ser Michael, he managed to mount.

Tom rode by his side. He wore the full harness and surcoat of the
primus pilus
of the company.

Out there, on the ground in front of the tents, waited the army.

Gabriel didn’t flinch from his duty. He accepted the cheers, and then he rode slowly along the ranks. He felt curiously detached. He knew the butcher’s bill—but he still kept expecting to see men where they were not. Ser John Crayford, Count of Albinkirk, would never again lead the Albinkirk Independent Company. There was no company to lead, and the Captain of Albinkirk was dead. Nell was not by his side, and Kit Foliak would never buy another gold embroidered sword belt. The north Brogat levy was led by a man he’d never met, a northern knight. Lord Gregario was in one of Amicia’s wards, with the Grand Squire in the next bed.

There were thousands gone, and the dead were all about him, and if he wasn’t careful, he’d begin to think that Nicholas Ganfroy was just at his elbow. Or Cuddy, killed in the last of the fighting with the Galles, or Flarch.

Gelfred was so badly wounded that even Amicia despaired for him. It was Sauce who took his salute, and Long Paw who rode by his side as he inspected the green banda at the right of the line—Amy’s Hob was dead, and Will Starling was lost and presumed dead. And more, and their losses were not the worst.

In the white banda the scars showed—a new generation, dead, in a single dragon’s breath. But where Morgon had stood, the company lived—there was Milus, and there George Brewes. And Gonzago D’Avia and
young Fitzsimmons. And many men Milus had recruited and he’d never met—Moreans and Occitans, and even some Galles.

And the red banda—luckier. Still decimated, but only just. Ser Michael sat like a rock on his war horse, Attila, and gave him a crisp salute. Men all along the line were cheering.

Some were also coughing.

Gabriel ignored them. He smiled as much as he could, and passed among the men he’d known for five years and more—the ones left alive. Parcival D’Entre Deux Monts. Gavin Hazzart. And there was Wilful Murder, and there, Robin Hasty, and there, still alive, No Head. And beyond, just barely sober, Oak Pew. She coughed hard and spat something in her hand. Daniel Favour. Ser Ranald. Smoke. Adrian Goldsmith. Ser Bescanon. Ser Danved, talking even now, and Ser Bertran, still silent. His squire, Jean, was grinning, and Petite Mouline in a new red arming coat was beaming, brimful of happiness.

He walked his horse to where Wilful Murder sat. “You, and Cully, Tippit, and No Head and Long Paw. And some knights and squires. I guess we still have a company.”

Wilful looked at Tippit, a few files away, and a small smile creased his aging face. “We could use some fucking archers,” he said. “Ones not like some awkward sods I could mention.”

It shouldn’t have mattered.

But they weren’t
all
dead.

He finished his inspection of his own company, aiming for that polite level where every man feels his polishing was not in vain and no one feels he’s dying on parade, and then he moved off to the left, to the Moreans, who were in many ways the heroes of the hour and were cheering like fools. There he saw Janos Turkos, soon to be knighted, and Ser Giorgos Comnenos, who had saved Blanche, with the help of the Ifriquy’an, Ser Pavalo. And Count Zac, back where he belonged at the head of his easterners. Beyond them stood the Royal Guard, which had never felt the breath of the dragon and yet looked as if they had, and all the Occitans and western levies under Prince Tancredo and Lord Gareth, none of whom seemed to have polished anything. The Royal Foresters were not on parade. The Redmede brothers had taken the Jacks and the Foresters into the woods together, pursuing the broken enemy, trying to make sure that the victory had consequence.