Dragon rider, p.44
Dragon Rider, page 44
Beverlai lifted her hand and flexed her fingers. Then she contorted them and pointed at Jai.
‘I know you’ve got some fight in you,’ she growled. ‘Let’s see how much.’
Chapter 97
Jai did not wait to see Beverlai’s hand glow, instead sprinting for his discarded blade. A ball of flame whipped by his head and Jai dove aside, rolling in the wet leaves.
Another flared past him, setting fire to the brambles behind. Jai could only roll on, thrusting himself deeper into the thickets as fireballs slammed into the ground around him.
Jai scrambled behind a tree even as flame flattened against its front, nearly lifting it from its roots. He braced himself against it, waiting for the light of Beverlai’s hand to fade.
The warden cackled and Jai heard her soothing the direwolf. He peered out to see Beverlai plucking at Rufus’s tight knots. She cursed before rummaging around on the forest floor, seeking Jai’s sword.
‘Come on,’ Beverlai hissed. ‘Where’ve you left it. Been a while since Ulf’s had a taste of savage.’
In his mind’s eye, Jai sensed Winter lying in wait beyond, her little heart nearly beating out of her chest. She awaited his instruction and Jai could tell it took every ounce of her willpower to not attack.
Jai pressed himself against a tree, knowing he had but seconds before the blade was found and the direwolf cut free. If that happened, he was finished.
Winter was his last card to play. Beverlai knew he was soulbound. Knew he was ascended. But she did not know he was bonded to a nearby beast, let alone a dragon.
Light flared, bright as the sun, then faded. Somewhere beyond, a deep boom rattled the branches, followed by a slap of wind that nearly bowled Jai over and caused the trees to creak.
Then another flash, and another. The very ground shook, so that Jai had to grip the trunk for balance. Whatever Magnus and Rufus were doing, Jai could not imagine their battle would last long either. And he did not trust Rufus to win it.
He needed to end this . . . fast.
Jai had seen some basic gestures in his short time with Rufus, but he had not practised them enough.
A fireball might surprise Beverlai – he knew he could form one, at least.
He contorted his hand and entered the half-trance, forcing mana down his channels. He revelled in how swiftly the mana moved through his body, yet when it reached his hand, it did very little. Fizzled, mere sparks sputtering from his fingertips.
Jai had no time to perfect his finger positioning. Instead, he did the only thing he could. He ordered Winter to attack . . . and dove around the side of the tree.
Beverlai’s left hand swung up at the first sign of movement, and Jai saw the old woman was sawing at the wolf’s bonds with her right. He ran on, even as Beverlai’s eyes began to glow.
Twenty feet. Ten.
A sphere of flame was forming at the tip of Beverlai’s finger, swirling like a miniature sun. She screamed out, and Jai hurled himself aside.
The ball flared past his side, setting his shirt aflame. Jai rolled, over and over, as more flame billowed around him. He sensed Winter leap . . . and heard a garbled scream.
Jai was up and running in a heartbeat, ignoring his burning clothes. He charged Beverlai as she stabbed at the snapping, scratching thing wrapped around her head. He hit home, tackling the woman’s feet from under her.
The three rolled in the grass, Jai grappling for Beverlai’s hands. He found his mark, and Jai wrestled them to the ground, pressing with all his might to keep them from majicking. The blade was somewhere close, but Jai dared not let her hands go.
It comes!
Jai sensed the sudden horror in Winter’s mind and dove aside. A grey blur passed over him as furry limbs knocked him off his knees.
Ulf was free.
Jai scrambled for the fallen blade, even as Winter disengaged, lunging for the wolf. Then her mind was aflame with pain and fury, taking Ulf head on in a whirlwind of fur, scales and teeth.
The sword hilt knocked against his palm and Jai spun with the blade, stabbing at Beverlai as the woman wiped the blood from her face.
He hit home, once, twice, before a blind hand swept up. Light. Then Jai was hurtling through the air, agony jolting through him as he slammed into a trunk.
Flames spread across his chest, peeling cloth away to roast his skin beneath. Jai ripped away the garment. Turned, and charged again.
Only to be faced with a wall of flame.
Beverlai blazed the space in front of him, an inferno of mana setting the very ground on fire as she tried to clear blood from her vision. Jai raised his wrist to protect his face as the heat battered him.
Beyond, Winter was losing. Already she had broken contact, using the brambles to hide from the slavering direwolf. There was no time.
Jai staggered into the flames, even as they petered out. Beverlai swung her hand from side to side, blinking through crimson-filled eyes. She could not see.
But she could hear, and as Jai took another step he barely side-stepped the streak of flame that shot his way. Weaker, this time. The old woman was almost out of mana.
‘Come on, you craven cunt,’ Beverlai snarled, swinging her hand from side to side. ‘Where are you?’
Her free hand was pressed to where Jai had wounded her shoulder, and Jai watched as the woman’s fingers traced a spell there. Healing, the wound sealing before Jai’s eyes.
Jai did the only thing he could. He threw the blade with all his might.
The sword slapped lengthways across Beverlai’s face, cutting a furrow in her forehead. Reeling, Beverlai blasted a wave of flame.
Jai dove beneath it, taking Beverlai’s legs from under her.
Mana roiled in Jai’s veins as he pulsed out almost all he had, slamming his fists again and again into her face.
Blood spattered as her nose burst, and then Jai was forced to grapple hand-to-hand once more. Beverlai’s fingers were like steel and it was all Jai could do to disrupt their twisting.
Danger!
Jai looked up. Saw Ulf charging at him, Winter limping in pursuit. He had seconds.
The sword! Where was the sword?
Jai reached out, scrabbling in the litter where it had fallen. Found the hilt, even as Ulf leaped. Jai’s vision filled with a gaping maw.
A wall of fur slammed into the beast’s side.
Navi! The khiro bellowed, rearing and trampling the direwolf as it scrabbled for purchase in the wet soil. It twisted, and lunged, latching onto her snout, savaging her side to side.
Jai lifted his blade, holding it above Beverlai’s face. The cruel woman raised her hands, a word half-formed in her mouth. She sobbed, once.
Then Jai plunged his blade down, through her eye socket. Twisted back and forth, screaming hatred into the warden’s face.
‘Die,’ Jai roared, ramming blade through skull, spearing the earth.
Chapter 98
Jai watched as the direwolf collapsed across the clearing, twitching and shaking at its master’s death. Navi reared on her back legs. Stomped down once. Twice.
The twitching stopped.
A dull boom echoed through the forest, shaking leaves to float down from the canopy above. It was distant. As if Magnus and Rufus’s battlefield spanned over a mile.
Rufus might need his help, but Jai knew well he had no business giving it. He had a responsibility. Frida.
Or Erica . . . Jai’s head reeled. He didn’t know what to call her.
Jai could make out the princess’s figure and looked for movement. She was stirring, but not struggling as he had thought she would be. She looked drunk, or something close to it. Her lips mumbled nonsensically, and she shook and twitched. He would have to carry her. Or at least, Navi would.
‘Winter,’ Jai croaked.
He had breathed in a great deal of flame and smoke and his throat was choked from it. He felt cooked from both within and without, for his skin was pink and raw where the flames had taken hold. Had he not been ascended, he might well be dead. As it was, his mana was almost spent, the exertion of battle and healing of his burned skin sapping it like a leech.
Winter threw herself into his arms and he clutched her close. She was twice as heavy as he remembered her, yet at the same time felt light as a feather, for he was far stronger now.
For a few heartbeats he let himself calm, her cool scales soothing on his healing chest. Then he struggled to his feet.
Jai patted at his clothes where they were still smoking, even as he ran to Navi. He wrapped her neck in a hug.
‘Thank you,’ Jai whispered as the three pressed their heads together. ‘You saved my life.’
The beast whickered in his ear and nuzzled him with her snout. Jai only wished he could heal her, for the bite there was deep, and dripping blood.
‘Winter,’ Jai murmured. ‘My darling girl. I thank you, too. But I must ask more of you this night.’
The dragon understood his intentions as easily as his words. He did not even need to voice it. She leaped from his arms and limped off to the east. Her body, too, was slowly healing. He could sense it; the mana in her tiny kernel of a core draining fast.
Jai stumbled closer to Frida. He knelt beside her, brushing the hair from her face.
She was so thin, he almost thought they had swapped her with one of the girls from the brothel. Her eyes were sunk into her skull and the skin of her face was paler, such that he could see the spider-lines of her blue veins beneath her skin. Her skin, when he touched it, was dry and thin as rice paper.
It was her. But less of her.
‘Frida,’ Jai whispered. Then: ‘Erica.’
She stopped, just for a moment, then continued mumbling. Dansk, if Jai had to guess. She was not here right now. Not in her mind.
Jai lifted her and placed her gently in Navi’s saddle. He shouldered his pack, grateful to it for softening the impact when he had hit the trees.
He could not afford to wait. Jai needed to know if the wardens had heard the sound of battle. If they were coming. Ascended or not, he had barely any mana, and Frida was not exactly able to help. All four of them were injured in some way.
His chest was burned, though not so badly that it inhibited his movement. Frida’s, or rather Erica’s, delirium meant she would be no help. And Winter . . . she was cut, battered and bruised in a dozen places, with her tail bent and hanging limp at its end.
Jai could not head west now. Not with Magnus in that direction. Nor with a score of horse-riding scouts ready to hunt them as they headed for the Kashmere Road. He was not sure if he and Frida could take twenty trained soldiers, even if they had time to replenish their mana.
He had two choices. The first was to wait to learn whether uncle or nephew survived the battle. Wager on the old veteran and hope they would head west with him as their protector . . . rather than die a cruel death at Magnus’s hands.
Or they could escape east through Porticus. Deep into Steppefolk territory, where no small imperial force dared follow. A vast place where they might disappear with enough of a head start.
What else? He was beginning to feel panicked, for the battle had gone silent. He needed to make a choice. Now.
Jai returned to Beverlai’s body and yanked his blade free, sheathing it after wiping it on her shirt. Then he retrieved the keys at the woman’s hip.
For a moment, Jai stared at Frida. He wished he could ask her what she wanted. He knew, in his heart of hearts, what she would say.
If they headed for the Kashmere Road, or some other mountain pass, it might be many months before they made their way to the Dansk border. And that was if they didn’t get caught first. She’d never forgive him if he took the safer, longer path. She wanted to return to her people. To lead them in their darkest hour.
What choice was more insane, when he really thought about it? To walk away when they were so close? Stay in enemy territory, and trust the fates they could outrun whoever came in pursuit?
Or they could attack the prison. Fight or sneak their way through it.
None expected an attack from the west. None expected an attack from a soulbound, weak and injured though he was. And the wardens would be complacent, with the legion so close by. What sentries would stay on duty through this bitterly cold night, watching the clouds of dust the legion threw up in their wake?
Both plans seemed as foolish as each other. To go west spread the risk over many days and might keep them alive a little longer. To go east . . . well, it was one last fight. One more gamble.
Not to mention, he could free the Huddites.
It was Winter that clinched it. By now, the dragon had made it up a tall tree a mile closer to the prison. She saw . . . no threat. Not a sign of life. She was telling him they were safe.
Jai thanked her in his mind and asked her to wait for him by the western wall.
Then he secured Frida into Navi’s saddle, even as another blast rocked the trees around him.
‘Hang on, Rufus,’ Jai whispered.
The khiro nickered at the disturbance and Jai patted the side of her neck to calm her.
‘Come on girl,’ Jai said. ‘Let’s go home.’
Chapter 99
Jai crouched in the shadow of Porticus’s west wall, his hand stroking Navi’s soft muzzle to keep her quiet. She was large enough that he might clamber upon her back and climb to the top of the wall. But it would be far easier to sneak through the gap where it lay unfinished.
Much to his relief, he saw there were no sentinels on the walls or wandering the grounds. The snow had melted, too – they would be harder to track once they left this place.
But Jai could hear the wardens. He had thought they would be sleeping, but it seemed the ladies from the brothel had stayed for yet another night. He could hear them all now, laughing and singing in the garrison above the east wall’s gatehouse.
In some ways it was a blessing, for he had thought that they might have heard the sound of battle, distant though it would have been.
‘Winter,’ Jai breathed.
The hatchling scrambled to his side, still limping. Jai wished he knew a spell to heal her. Or even had time to bandage her many wounds. Instead, he gritted his teeth and began smearing mud onto her scales, dulling some of the shine. Soon she was almost as dark as her mother had been.
‘Wait for my signal,’ Jai whispered. ‘Go. Now.’
She lowered herself onto her belly and began the slow crawl towards the east gates, hugging the far wall where the poles were. Any warden glancing from the window or walking out for a piss in the latrines might see Jai. But Winter . . . she would be far less noticeable. Just a fox attracted to the stench of corpses.
Jai looked to the horses. Whether the Huddites could ride them, he did not know. But he knew that if they did not take them the scouts might still pursue them into enemy territory before the fear of the Steppefolk turned them back. Might even catch up to them.
Better to solve the problem by freeing the Huddites and letting them take the horses to make good their escape.
But Jai needed to get them out first.
He knew he had a far better chance of escape if he would simply wait for Winter to lift the bar from the eastern gates and ride Navi through at speed. Not to mention that a full prison break would mean every warden in Porticus would come in pursuit.
But he knew he could not leave the prisoners here. Jai had thought he had known misery at the palace. Known suffering.
He had known nothing.
And then, Jai saw him.
He had not noticed him before, for the warden had been so still. A single man, sitting upon the ramparts. Facing west.
Facing Jai.
Why this warden had chosen to stay out, Jai did not know. Perhaps Aurelius had forced him to as punishment. Perhaps Jai’s escape had precipitated the creation of a new post – a man to constantly watch the prison interior.
Either way . . . Jai could not reach the cells undetected. And if he made a run for it, the wardens would man the walls long before the Huddites had reached the horses.
Without Winter, Jai knew his only card left to play was his mana.
He knew one spell that might help. Balbir’s shade spell. It was time to try it once more.
Jai ducked back behind the gap in the west wall and sat cross-legged in the snow. He entered the trance, fully this time.
Within, he saw his core was near empty, though it was so much larger, he realised it was almost as much as if his core had been full before he had ascended. This was the few dregs that had not yet been used up in the battle or in slow-healing his burns in the aftermath. Jai cursed under his breath. He had to move quickly.
Jai took that small reserve and pulsed it to his contorted hand for the second time that night. Again, he felt almost triumphant as the mana reached his fingers.
For a moment, Jai thought he’d succeeded, as mana spurted out . . . but he saw nothing but golden sparks.
‘Wrong,’ a voice croaked.
Jai spun. Frida was looking at him, hanging upside-down from the saddle.
‘Frida!’ Jai breathed.
He had not known how scared he had been for her until that moment, for relief flooded him like a drug. For she was still dosed with poison and weak as a lamb in consequence. He had worried she would never wake.
He helped her sit up, for she looked like she had not the strength to stand. She sat slumped, hugging Navi’s neck so tight it was as if she feared falling to her death. Her eyes were glazed and her pupils so large they almost hid her iris entirely. Jai had seen that same look before when Leonid took his pain medicine. She was drugged to the gills.
They were running out of time. Already, he could sense Winter was at the gate, waiting to lift the heavy bar that held it closed. He only hoped she had the strength to do so when the time came.
‘Show me,’ Jai said.
Frida forced a smile with thin, chapped lips and pointed at Jai’s fingers.
‘Through the fingers . . . not to them.’
It was so simple Jai could have kicked himself. He closed his eyes . . . and pushed through.
The effect was immediate. Light flared from his hand, projecting a dull, green glow wherever he pointed them. He could almost feel it against his skin. In fact, he could feel it. Numbing him wherever the light touched, as if he had spent the past hour in a cold lake.
