Wardragon (4 page)

‘Were a king to declare a ban upon ale from the end of the month, the innkeepers would also be run off their feet with demand, yet they would still be facing ruin from the month’s end.’

‘Even innkeepers must sleep, and I’m weary now, I can tell you that.’

Jelindel gave a quick grin, in spite of her apprehension. ‘I was orphaned at fourteen, now I’m eighteen and so very much has happened in those four years. I feel that I’ve lost something. I want it back.’

‘Lost what?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Then you can’t have it back.’

‘We can take the rest of the year off,’ Jelindel decided, giving up on her rambling thoughts. ‘Just do local work.’

‘Good. No more travelling. I want to sleep in my own bed, with you – and tally my own coins.’

Jelindel snorted. ‘My partner in life, the romantic miser.’

‘I’m not a miser.’

‘You always think someone’s trying to cheat you.’

‘They are.’

‘Exactly. In any case, right now it’s only a few thousand seagulls. Come on, let’s get moving, or we’ll be marooned here when dark comes.’

They made it to the cliff top shortly before nightfall. Here a series of deep fissures etched the cliff face and they explored them while eating the sausage and bread they had bought in the market that morning. Suddenly Jelindel motioned Daretor to be still.

‘Something’s happening,’ she whispered.

Daretor simultaneously crouched, glanced around, and slowly drew his sword. At first he could see nothing amiss. There was a slight mist forming, which was not unusual so close to the sea. The muffled quality to the air, deadening ordinary sounds, he put down to the thin fog. There were none of the flying sharks that Merris had reported, indeed there was no movement at all. Even the terns and gulls that nested on the ledges below had fallen silent with the onset of darkness.

‘Jelindel –’ he started to whisper but she waved him urgently to silence, then froze. Something flashed past them moving at incredible speed. It was so fast Daretor could not be sure he had actually seen something. Then he peered more closely at the air and noted the swirling tendrils of mist, as when a person runs past through fog.

More
things
flashed from the deep fissures, passing – as Merris had said – in the blink of an eye. Try as he might, Daretor could not get a good look at them. There was a vague sense of predatory confidence, and silvery, streamlined shapes. In no more than a handful of heartbeats, the salvo of shapes had gone.

‘Dinner is served,’ Daretor whispered to himself, relaxing a little. Then he noted that Jelindel continued to crouch unmoving, peering into the night. She pointed abruptly. A small shape darted by. It looked somewhat like a seahorse and moved with that creature’s ungainly, hesitant motion. Then there were more of the things, and other forms besides. Some drifted back and forth as if the wind blew them.

‘Enough,’ said Jelindel. ‘I’ve seen enough. We must get back to town and see what we can do there.’

At that moment something shot at them from a nearby dark fissure. Only the fact that Daretor was looking in that direction and had his sword still raised and ready saved them. As the blurring movement registered on him he lunged forward, unable to aim, only to react. But his instincts were true and as the creature sped towards him it impaled itself on his sword. For one ghastly moment they both saw the nature of the beast, then it wrenched itself away and shot back into the fissure, trailing blood and what looked like a stream of bubbles.

‘What manner of abomination was –’ Daretor began.

‘More will come,’ said Jelindel. ‘I can feel them. Hurry, we have little time.’ She tugged Daretor to the edge of the shelf they stood on. Below them was a drop of a thousand feet.

‘I hate doing this,’ he said.

‘Trust me.’

‘Like I would no other.’

Jelindel stepped off the edge, dragging Daretor with her. As they fell something
whooshed
through the space they had just occupied. Daretor twisted round and saw a tiny flickering of blue light on Jelindel’s lips. She was speaking a spell to slow their fall, but knowing that they were not about to meet an abrupt and messy end at the base of the cliff did little to calm Daretor’s terror.

‘This would be a good time, Jelindel –’ Daretor shouted as the shadowy ground rushed up to meet them. Jelindel concluded the words of her ancient spell, and although for a heart-wrenching moment Daretor thought the magic had failed her, he realised their speed was diminishing. The ground no longer rushed towards them at the speed of a hurtling arrow. But something
else
did still move and with awesome speed at that.

‘We’re in trouble,’ said Jelindel, pointing to where Daretor was already looking. A grey shape speared down out of the night towards them. It too was moving in a kind of slow motion yet it still shot towards them faster than they fell.

‘Throw your sword,’ Jelindel cried.

‘What?’

‘Your sword. Throw it at the thing!’

Daretor drew back his hand and flung his sword. It spun away in an arc, then blue flickering light shot from Jelindel’s hands. The sword sparkled momentarily then became a deadly missile with the unerring purpose of a crossbow bolt travelling sideways. It shot towards the oncoming shape, far faster than the creature itself could move. They saw the sword twirling, saw the creature try to dodge, then saw the razor-sharp point slicing its side open and spilling entrails and blood out into the air like streamers and confetti. The sword swept away, upwards, to another creature that was diving on them.

Jelindel and Daretor hit the ground, bounced with the cushioning of the spell, and broke into a run. Blood and entrails showered down around them.

‘Exhausted, carry me,’ gasped Jelindel as the sword clanged down nearby. Daretor stopped to swoop it up.

Daretor hurried for the town, Jelindel across his shoulders and the bloodied sword in his hand. As soon as they approached the town centre they encountered a scene where a dozen of the town militia had decided there was safety in numbers. The aerial beasts had been hard at work and Jelindel baulked at the bloody mayhem they had wreaked. Panting, Daretor set her down to walk as best she could. Then she stumbled upon two bodies, almost intact, one minus its head and the other, an older man, seemingly untouched but with his wrinkled hands clutching his chest. Both wore swords about their waists. Jelindel unsheathed a sword and flung it into the air, to patrol overhead in a whirl of magical blue.

‘Thought you were exhausted,’ gasped Daretor, doubling up.

‘Cushion spell and sword spell together,’ wheezed Jelindel. ‘Really excessive. Either one, not hard.’

‘How long do they last?’ Daretor asked, keeping a wary eye on the scything sword.

‘Long enough to discourage the fish.’ She waved him to silence, unable to speak.

Above them the sword gave a creature a severe case of discouragement, then a vast carcass partly demolished a small house as it fell to earth. By the light from the city’s few oil lamps they could see a school of the creatures cruising high overhead, but the whirling sword continued to patrol above the rooftops. The fish-things slowed, and for a long moment they hung in the air. For the first time Jelindel got a good look at them. Then she turned her attention to the one that had fallen nearby. It was at least twenty feet long and very shark-like in shape. Silver in colour, it possessed huge convulsive gills that worked constantly, and razor-sharp fins that ended in tiny webbed fingers. But it was the jaws that set it apart from indigenous fish. The sword’s victim had jaws that hung open, revealing a vast array of gleaming swept-back teeth and a dark maw that could swallow a sheep whole – or a man after a little shredding. Jelindel had already seen the savagery of the things; now she saw, in their slitted bloodshot eyes, their madness.

‘What would a few more flying swords do?’ asked Daretor.

‘Cause me to die of exhaustion,’ panted Jelindel. ‘That sort of magic is hard work. Still, I could probably cast a second one, and that may be all that we need. Find a sword, throw it up.’

Daretor flung a dead militiaman’s sword into the air, where Jelindel snared it with a second spell. Instead of hovering, however, this one climbed to meet the cruising predators. They began to scatter, but one did not move quite fast enough. More pieces of flesh began to rain down on the city, then a vast body landed, smashing a hay cart to matchwood.

‘They’re gone,’ Jelindel called. ‘It’s all over. For now at least.’

‘Gone?’ exclaimed Daretor. ‘Call themselves warriors and they flee after only five of their number have died.’ Jelindel checked the air for more predators before allowing the two swords to fall. Daretor caught them deftly.

‘They’re predators, not warriors. Predators such as big cats prefer easy meat, and these are the same. If every victim they chose had a good chance of killing them, they would not survive long. Those things up there are too sensible to risk being ripped open for the sake of a meal.’

‘What are they?’ Daretor asked, kicking the carcass that had crushed the hay cart. He was careful to stay away from its jaws, in case they snapped in death throes.

‘A paraworld portal has been opened in those cliffs, linking us to another world, and every night the two worlds are superimposed. This whole city is beneath its ocean.’

‘Ocean? Where’s all the water?’

‘These creatures are just deep-sea predators. For them, our atmosphere has become their sea and they are doing what they are designed to do: hunt and feed.’

‘Then they are not daemons?’

‘No. But a mortal daemon opened that portal.’

‘Someone here in Sezel?’

‘That is unlikely. I have the impression that something very powerful is draining Q’zar of magic. No mage of this world would do that.’

‘Why not? I have met some highly skilled but very stupid mages.’

‘I still doubt it. This is like a swordsman cutting off his own sword arm.’

This analogy made sense to Daretor. ‘Well then, what can you tell?’

‘At the very least, it’s a tear in the paraplane’s fabric. There could well be others.’

‘Why does this one only show itself at night, then?’

‘Tides,’ said Jelindel. ‘That other world must have massive tides. When the water level is high enough the creatures are able to swim through the portal.’

Daretor wiped the blood from his sword and sheathed it. ‘How do you know all this?’

‘I don’t,’ she said, thinking of Cimone’s prediction. ‘It’s the only explanation that presents itself.’

The next morning they made a second expedition to the cliff face, this time with an escort of guards from the Duke and most of the town’s militiamen. By noon, the paraworld portal had been sealed with tons of rubble that were anchored to the cliff by chains attached to eyelets driven into the cliff face. The Duke, anxious to show that he was due for the credit by thinking to hire Jelindel and Daretor in the first place, praised and thanked them as the city’s saviours. He then presented them with double their fee in a public ceremony at the city’s main square.

Daretor made a point of claiming the extra fee as ‘working capital’.

Back at the hostelry they sat down in the taproom and ordered drinks, relaxing for the first time in weeks.

‘Now what?’ asked Daretor.

‘Home,’ said Jelindel.

Daretor noticed how tired she looked, as if she had finally let down her guard. Then over her shoulder and through the window, he saw that a handsome, flaxen-haired man was staring intently at Jelindel’s back. When he realised Daretor was watching him he quickly turned and hurried away out of sight.

Daretor frowned. ‘There’s that fellow again, the same one I saw in Hazaria. He was staring at you.’

‘Doubtless because I am pleasing to stare at,’ replied Jelindel.

‘What’s he doing here?’ muttered Daretor, undeterred.

Jelindel stopped to think. ‘Maybe he’s a merchant,’ she said, trying to be nonchalant. ‘He’d visit most cities in Bravenhurst for trade.’

‘Maybe you’ve got an admirer,’ said Daretor, finally raising a subject that had been eating at him for months.

‘I’d have two if you admired me occasionally.’

Should have expected sarcasm, thought Daretor. Jelindel smiled and put a hand against his cheek. ‘There’s only one admirer I need,’ she finally added. ‘Besides, the blond boy is more likely some kind of spy sent to watch us. We’re not without enemies, as well you know.’

‘Aye, there’s even a bounty on our heads,’ Daretor conceded.

‘Technically. The ruler who declared the bounty is now a fugitive, and has little money.’

Daretor placed the tankard he was holding on the table and stood. There was nothing unusual about this, except that his tankard was not yet empty.

Jelindel looked up. ‘Where are you going?’

‘To book passage on the next ship to D’loom.’

Jelindel sighed. ‘I’m agreeable with that, even though I had other plans for this evening.’

‘For me?’

‘For my most favoured admirer.’

‘What is that supposed to mean?’

‘It means that I was teasing you. Come along, Daretor, don’t be churlish. Let’s take the esplanade. Tonight we’re rich.’

They wandered along the esplanade. It ran along a stretch of waterfront only recently upgraded from a rat-infested dock haunted by suspicious looking loiterers to a stone walkway infested by lap-dogs and haunted by merchants and their wives talking about property values. The crowds were particularly heavy following the vanquishing of the aerial predators.

Promenade robes were being worn by nearly every woman, while the men wore fancy tunics, hand-embroidered soft leather breeches, and a new fashion from Skelt – triangular-shaped captains’ hats. It gave the street a rather jaunty naval feel which was enhanced by the rich yachts moored there, the lanterns of which flared with each gust of the breeze. The inns, taverns and coffee houses had nautical names, and most styled themselves along the lines of a ship’s cabin.

‘So they work hard to gather wealth, then pretend to be poor sailors when they eat,’ observed Daretor as they strolled along with their arms linked, staring at the display trays of vendors.