The Copper Promise Read online

  ‘What did you do?’

  Frith looked up at her. The long twisting scar from his face was gone, and he was standing straight and true, but his hair was still bone-white.

  He looked like he was trying to formulate an answer, but then Wydrin noticed something behind him, in the ruins of the Citadel. Red against red.

  She ran back up the Sea-Glass Road, weaving through the debris and ignoring the throbbing in her head. Amongst the broken stones of the Citadel were four equally broken bodies, dressed in brown leather armour. A shattered spear still poked from the hand of one of them.

  ‘The guards,’ she said. Her stomach turned over slowly. ‘They’re all dead, just look at them. Didn’t the Culoss say …?’

  A tremendous roar from below caused the words to die in her throat. The ground around them began to shake, and a series of huge cracks ran down the Sea-Glass Road like the lightning that had brought down the Citadel.

  ‘She’s coming,’ said Frith. ‘We have to get out of here.’

  ‘What is she?’ cried Wydrin. The rubble began to churn, throwing pieces of rock and stone down at them as something huge began to push its way up from below. There was another roar, turning Wydrin’s blood cold. It was the roar of something that ate creatures her size as an appetiser. And she couldn’t drag her eyes away from it.

  An enormous reptilian head pushed through the ruin of the Citadel. It was covered in shining scales, each as deep a blue as the ocean. Its huge yellow eyes were full of fire, and when it opened its mouth a belch of greasy flame shot forth. Y’Ruen pulled herself free of the rubble and flapped a pair of leathery wings, each as big as the sails on Wydrin’s father’s largest ship.

  ‘A dragon,’ said Wydrin weakly. She could feel all the strength draining from her legs, despite her brain’s frantic instructions to run.

  ‘A dragon, a god, what does it matter?’ Frith was next to her, and as Y’Ruen turned her huge fiery eyes upon them he slipped an arm around her waist and pulled her close to him. She had a second to notice that he already had hold of Sebastian by the remains of his cloak before the desert sky began to distort and twist.

  ‘What are you doing?!’

  ‘Taking us away. Now hold on.’

  Before they vanished from the Sea-Glass Road, Wydrin twisted her head for one last look at the monster they had unleashed. Distantly she could hear screaming as the city of Krete awoke to its long-neglected guest.

  Y’Ruen roared, blue scales winking in the sun, and the city began to burn.

  PART TWO

  Children of the Fog

  13

  The Thirty-Third walked down the cobbled road, her bare feet silent against the stones. Across the way she could just make out the slim shape of her brood sister, the Ninety-Seventh, crouched over something twitching on the floor. It was making noises, and she could feel her sister’s pleasure as a warm space in her mind. The Thirty-Third smiled, tasting smoke on her tongue.

  They had no names, the brood army, but the Thirty-Third knew where she had been spawned, and when. She had grown in the cold and dark over many long years, nestled closely to her sisters, tasting their minds all around her until she knew each of them without needing to look at their faces. There were those who were before her, and those who were after, and that was all. And Mother, of course.

  A small shape came careening out of an open doorway, skidding to a halt in front of her. Its eyes were wide with panic, and immediately the Thirty-Third was in pursuit. There was no need to think; the creature was small and warm and terrified, a thing of prey. It made the mistake of turning and running back into the darkened household, and the Thirty-Third followed.

  The family had gathered in the parlour, and were now huddled together around the remains of the dining table. The Thirty-Third could see the vestiges of relief on the mother’s face, relief at the return of her son who had so foolishly run away. The Thirty-Third watched as the tatters of this emotion were replaced with flat terror. It was fascinating, really. The mother gathered her son into her arms, pressing him to her skirts.

  ‘Hello,’ said the Thirty-Third. It was interesting to speak. Each word was a new flavour.

  ‘Get out.’ The father was a skinny man with a shining bald spot poking through the wisps of brown hair on his head. He was crooked from a lifetime of pushing carts and she could see from the glassy look in his eyes that he’d never needed to be brave before, but now here he was, doing it anyway. She grinned. ‘Get out and leave us alone,’ he said again.

  The Thirty-Third drew her sword. It was made of blue crystal, and it hummed as it slid against the golden scabbard. The family shuddered as one at the noise; they’d all heard that sound in the last few hours, and already knew what it meant. The Thirty-Third knelt and placed it on the floor in front of her feet.

  ‘I am only here to talk,’ she said, in what she hoped was a friendly tone. The boy whined, and twisted his fists into his mother’s apron. ‘It is a new thing, this … talking. I wish to ask you questions, hear your answers, and then you can go, yes?’

  The man and woman exchanged a look. There was hope in that look, a tiny candlelight you could never quite put out. It was one of the things she was learning about them.

  ‘We can go?’ asked the woman.

  ‘Yes. Tell me, what is the boy’s name?’ She pointed to the child with one delicately clawed finger.

  ‘Ben, his name is Ben.’ Now that they’d grasped the idea, they were eager to run with it. The man nodded and even smiled, just as though all his neighbours weren’t dead and the city burning. ‘Our lad, he’s just had his ninth birthday.’

  ‘Really?’ The Thirty-Third felt genuine delight at that. It was similar to the feeling of satisfaction that came when something previously unbroken snapped under her foot. ‘So have I! Well, my first. My first birthday.’

  ‘That’s nice,’ said the woman. Her voice was tight.

  ‘And you live here, in this city.’ The Thirty-Third gestured around at the four walls of the small room. ‘What does that mean, to live in the city?’

  The tentative smile on the man’s face froze, becoming a mask of something else. He didn’t understand the question, she could see that, and he knew that failing to answer would be dangerous.

  ‘I don’t – what do you mean?’

  She took a step towards them, and as one they shuffled back. She smiled a little wider.

  ‘You build things, make things, and then put them all together in one place, and then eat and sleep and rut and die next to each other. Why is that?’

  ‘It’s – this is Krete. There have been people here for thousands of years, it’s a place of great civilisation. There was the Citadel …’ he cast around for something else but found nothing.

  ‘Yes, there was,’ agreed the Thirty-Third. ‘I am done. You may go.’ She gestured to the doorway behind her.

  ‘We can leave?’ asked the woman. She had not once taken her eyes from the green-skinned soldier during the conversation. ‘You’ll just let us go?’

  ‘By all means,’ said the Thirty-Third, and then felt pleased with herself. She was picking up their phrases already. Or had that come from somewhere inside? ‘The boy first, please. Send him out the front and follow on behind. If you are quick and do not draw attention to yourselves, my sisters may not catch you.’

  ‘And you won’t hurt us?’ asked the woman, but already she was pushing the boy beyond the table, her hands on his shoulders. ‘No tricks?’

  ‘No tricks,’ agreed the Thirty-Third, affably enough. ‘My sword is on the floor.’

  The child, Ben, shuffled forward a few steps at a time. He glanced at the empty doorway, to the tall soldier with the pointed teeth, and then back to the doorway.

  ‘Go, Ben,’ said the father, with forced cheeriness. ‘We’ll see you outside.’

  ‘Do as your father says, Ben,’ said the Thirty-Third in a solemn voice, but as he passed close to her she reached out with her clawed hands as if to caress his cheek and
tore out his throat instead. The hot blood soaked her arm to the elbow, and she felt that warm sensation of satisfaction again. She turned to the parents just as the mother started screaming.

  The sword only sped up the process, after all.

  Outside, the streets were bright with fire. The Thirty-Third, now full and indolent as a snake, stood and looked into the billowing smoke. She was thinking about the questions she had asked, and some of the things she’d said.

  ‘By all means,’ she murmured to herself. The words were both strange and not strange. There was someone else with her, in her blood, something that was not her mother. She knew it as well as she knew the faces of her brood sisters.

  ‘We carry you with us, Father,’ she said to the blood-stained cobbles. ‘Can you feel it?’

  Lost in a nightmare of blood and fire and pain, Sebastian heard the voice that called him father – and felt his heart stop.

  14

  Wydrin forced her eyes open and stared up into a purple sky framed with black branches.

  Enormous trees loomed to either side, with gnarled trunks and branches filled with slick, dark green leaves. Bulbous populations of fungi crouched within the roots, like pale, watchful children, and wind moved mournfully through the treetops. Normally Wydrin disliked asking obvious questions, but on this occasion she felt she could hardly avoid it.

  ‘Where am I?’

  There was no answer.

  Krete had the aroma of a slop bucket left in the sun but the air here was fresh and clean. There was soil beneath her, dark and moist. She ran her fingers through it, taking in the smell of mud and trees, the deep earthy scent of an old place long guarded by nature. The dusty ruins of Krete had been replaced by a silent forest, and the dark skies above were mercifully empty of dragons.

  She sat up, and all the aches and pains came flooding back. There was a sharp throbbing in her arm that was probably a fracture, and the top of her head was sore where one of those green bitches had surprised her. She looked down and was surprised to see that she was bloody all over. A few more memories clicked into place.

  ‘Sebastian!’

  She scrambled to her feet. They were near a narrow ditch, fringed with ferns and squat bushes. A wave of dizziness caused her to stagger, and she spotted Frith lying off to one side, his white hair in disarray and his clothes still damp from the lake. He was rubbing his eyes with trembling hands. Sebastian lay on his front, some distance from the pair of them. He wasn’t moving.

  She ran to his side and pulled him round to face her. The violence of their journey had removed the dagger, but his body felt boneless, and too heavy.

  ‘Wake up!’ She shook him by the shoulders. ‘We’re out of there now. We’re out of the Citadel!’

  ‘That will not help him.’

  Frith appeared at her shoulder. There was a smudge of dirt on his cheek. Wydrin narrowed her eyes and punched him hard in the face. Frith went flying backwards into the mud.

  ‘You!’ She dropped Sebastian and went after Frith, her fists tingling. ‘You let him die!’

  ‘Wait.’ There was blood running from his lip. He held up a hand to ward her off. ‘I know how to help him.’

  Wydrin pulled Frostling from its scabbard. ‘Your lies won’t save that pretty throat of yours now, princeling.’

  ‘The mages, there must be a healing spell, don’t you see?’ Frith got to his feet warily, watching the blade. ‘Let me try, at least. If I cannot do it, then you can still cut my throat.’

  Wydrin paused, anger giving way to hope. Sebastian would have advised caution, would have told her to calm down and give the princeling a chance. Stupid Sebastian. Reluctantly, she sheathed the dagger.

  ‘Go on, then,’ she said, trying not to let the fear show in her voice. ‘But I hope your mage’s tricks are effective, for your sake.’

  Frith went to Sebastian’s side without looking at her, and took the big knight’s head between his hands.

  ‘See if you can open his eyes,’ he said in a low voice.

  Wydrin did as he instructed, although her stomach turned over anew when she pulled Sebastian’s eyelids up and saw the lifeless gaze they shielded. His blue eyes looked black in what little light there was.

  ‘Good,’ said Frith. He undid the straps that held Sebastian’s chainmail in place and pulled back the fleece beneath until the wound was revealed. The cut was small but deep, the skin there saturated with blood. Pressing his fingers against the wound, Frith bent his head as if in prayer.

  ‘What are you saying?’ asked Wydrin.

  He spared her an angry glance.

  ‘I’m not saying anything, fool. Be quiet and let me think.’

  Wydrin briefly considered punching him again, but decided to let him do his work. After a few moments, during which it seemed to Wydrin that the forest grew unnaturally quiet, a soft rose light grew from the spaces between Frith’s fingers. It crawled over Sebastian’s bare chest like honey, and Wydrin saw the edges of the wound begin to close up.

  ‘It’s working,’ she said, but Frith paid her no attention. He was sweating now, she saw, long strands of his thin white hair sticking to his forehead with it, and he was trembling all over. The pink light grew under his hands until it was so bright Wydrin could barely look at it.

  ‘It’s difficult to control …’ he said, although Wydrin didn’t think he was talking to her. ‘I don’t remember. It’s different.’

  After a few minutes the light began to throb rhythmically, and his eyes widened in surprise.

  ‘There!’ he gasped. Lifting his hands up from the wound the skin was smooth again. Sebastian jerked violently and started coughing, while Frith looked down at his hands in wonder.

  His eyes met Wydrin’s, and the smallest of smiles touched his lips.

  ‘I could feel it rising up inside me, like a vast tide. Like the lake.’ His voice became distant, as though he were walking away from her down a long tunnel. ‘I think …’ And with that his eyes rolled up into his head and he fell backwards into the mud for a second time. After a few moments Sebastian sat up, rubbing his head. He looked down at his blood-soaked clothes, and then to the prone form next to him.

  ‘What happened to Lord Frith?’ he asked, his voice little more than a croak.

  Wydrin sighed.

  ‘The princeling is so overcome with joy at your recovery he has, in fact, passed out at your feet.’ She paused, and punched Sebastian lightly on the arm. ‘It is good to see you up and about, though. Want to help me figure out where we are?’

  15

  ‘You’ve done what?’

  They were sitting around a small fire, huddling close to the flames. It had taken a while to get it going, with Wydrin cursing the damp forest in a colourful manner for many minutes, until, finally, a few weak flames had shown against the all-too-green branches they had gathered together. Sebastian had helped as best he could, despite Wydrin’s insistence that he sit still and gather his strength. In truth, he felt as well as he ever had. The terrible burning pain he had been dimly aware of since Gallo had stabbed him had completely gone, and even the aches and pains he might have expected to feel after the fight with the Culoss were not there.

  ‘Where else would you propose we go?’ said Frith. Now he was awake he appeared to be in a foul mood. Sebastian suspected he was embarrassed by his fainting fit. ‘Returning to Litvania was my goal all along.’

  ‘So you threw us back into the middle of this godforsaken wood? Wouldn’t your big cosy castle have been a little more useful?’ Wydrin snorted and poked at the fire with a stick. Frith glowered at her.

  ‘This is not an exact science. I don’t know if you recall, but we were rather in danger of being eaten by an enormous dragon at the time.’

  ‘Yes, about that,’ said Sebastian. ‘What do you propose we do about it?’

  He watched Frith and Wydrin exchange a look, their bickering temporarily forgotten.

  ‘Do?’ asked Frith. ‘What do you mean?’

  Sebasti
an looked up at the sky. It was full dark now, and the stars were largely obscured by clouds, but here and there he could see a pinprick of light. They made him think of eyes, watching them.

  ‘We unleashed a monster.’ He met Frith’s gaze, and then Wydrin’s, who was watching him carefully. ‘Worse than that, an entire army of monsters. It’s our fault. We have to go back and stop it. What do you suppose happened to Krete after we left? To the people that live there?’

  ‘I’m sure I don’t know,’ said Frith. There was a new chill to his voice and Sebastian realised he would get little help in that direction. ‘The City Guard will deal with it, I expect. Either way, my concerns lie here, in this forest. My castle is still in the hands of the People’s Republic of Istria, and now that I have the means’ – he held up his hands as if they might explode at any moment – ‘I intend to take it back. What you two do is of no concern to me. Go back to Creos, if you wish, and enjoy slaying your dragon.’

  ‘He’s got a point, Seb,’ said Wydrin. ‘We are … what, a thousand leagues from Creos now? More than that, probably. What can we do? Besides,’ she turned back to Frith and kicked his boot, ‘the princeling here still owes us money. As far as I’m concerned, the job is done.’

  Frith scowled.

  ‘Once I have my castle back you will have your coin, wench.’

  Sebastian bit down a protest, turning a hot chestnut over in his fingers. They had told him what had happened while he’d been unconscious, sharing the details of the lake under the Citadel and the last desperate stand of Wydrin and the Culoss against the scaled warriors (at which point Wydrin had shared her opinion on Frith’s actions in long and withering detail), and they had told him of the dragon that crawled out of the ruins of the Citadel afterwards; even Frith had seemed awed by it, shaking his head slowly as he described the creature’s eyes of boiling yellow fire. What Sebastian couldn’t tell them was how he knew all this already. He’d felt the movement of the scaled soldiers in his own blood, felt the rise of the creature called Y’Ruen into the sunlight for the first time in millennia. If he closed his eyes for more than a few seconds he could almost see them; the shining crystal of their swords streaked with blood, the skies over Creos a baleful orange as everything burned. Y’Ruen had to be stopped, but Wydrin was right. How?