The Iron Wyrm Affair

body on its carpet of boiling blood, her hand lifting to shield her face.

The ground settled as well. Vortigern, the colourless dragon, the Third Wyrm and mighty forefather of all the Timeless children still awake in the world, sank into slumber again, the Isle on his back pulled tight like a green and grey counterpane, upon which mites scattered and pursued their little loves and vendettas.

And Emma Bannon, Sorceress Prime, wept.

The silence was as massive as the cacophony beforehand had been, and she lifted her head, wiping her cheeks.

Most of the gryphons had settled into feeding at the fallen Shields and the three lion-bird corpses. The ripping and gurgling sounds were enough to unsettle even her stomach. No doubt even Clare’s excellent digestion would have difficulty with this.

Clare. She swallowed, hard, invisible threads twitching faintly. Londinium was a fair ways away. She had ridden Khloros to bloody Wales, of all places.

One of the gryphons mantled, hopping a little closer. It was edging away from the carrion and eyeing her sidelong, its gold-ringed pupil holding a small, perfect image of a very tired sorceress armed with a toothpick.

Oh dear. Emma swallowed again, drily.

The gryphon’s indigo-dyed tongue flicked as its beak opened. It was the remaining black from the carriage, its glossy feathers throwing back the morning sun with a blue-underlit vengeance.

“Vortigern,” it whistled. “Vortigern still sleeps, sorceress.”

That was the whole point of this exercise, was it not? And now I have other matters to attend to. The hilt, slippery with blood and her sweat, was pulsing-warm in her clenched fist. “Yes.”

“We are hungry.” Its beak clacked.

“You have the dead to feast upon,” she pointed out. “And Vortigern sleeps.”

In other words, I have done you a favour. I am loyal to Britannia, as you are. Or, more plainly, Please don’t eat me.

It actually laughed at her. Its claws flexed, and the reek of blood and split bowel tore at Emma’s nose. Blood could drive the beasts into a frenzy—

The invisible threads tied to a pendant twitched again. For such a movement to reach her here meant Clare was in dire trouble indeed.

“I am sorry,” she told the gryphon, and her grip on the knife shifted. The stone at her throat, frost-cold, became a spot of ice so fierce it burned, and she knew a charter symbol would be rising through its depths, shimmering and taking form in tangled lines of golden ætheric force.

The beast laughed again, its haunches rising slightly as it prepared to spring. Its feathers ruffled, and its pupil was so dark, the gold of its iris so bright. “So am I, Sorceress. But we are hungry.”

Force uncoiled inside her. She was exhausted, mental and emotional muscles strained from the opening of her Discipline. Her sorcerous Will was strong, yes, but the toll of ætheric force channelled through her physical body dragged her down. It would slow her, just at the moment she needed speed and strength most.

I am not ready to die. She knew it did not matter. Death was here all the same, the payment demanded by Khloros. Death was inevitable.

Her fingers tightened on the knife’s hilt. Inevitable as well was Emma Bannon’s refusal to die quietly.

Even for Victrix.

The gryphon sprang.

Chapter Thirty-Nine Who Dies Next?

The inner courtyard of the Palace, choked with drifts of dust and quaking underfoot, opened around them. The front door had broken, and the brown-jacketed Prussian mercenaries with their white armbands poured through, firing as they advanced. Many of the Guard fell, buying time for Victrix to flee through the halls. All that remained was to cross the courtyard and gain the relative safety of the Throne Hall.

Though how that great glass-roofed hall could shelter them was somewhat fuzzy to Clare. He suspected he was not thinking clearly.

Clare limped along, Sigmund hauling him, the vast shadow of the arachnid mecha stagger-thrashing above. Stone crumbled, the centuries of building and replacement work smashed in a moment. Something was wrong – the arachnid reeled drunkenly, shattering glass from its capacitors falling like daggers.

Victrix stumbled. Mikal and Eli all but carried her, one on either side, and the Guard fanned out. Rifleshot popped on the stones around them – the Prussians had gained height and were firing from the windows. The door to the Throne Hall had never seemed so far away.

They plunged into dust-swirling darkness just as a massive grinding thud smashed in the courtyard. A gigantic warm hand lifted Clare and flung him; he landed with a crunch and briefly lost consciousness. He surfaced in a soupy daze, carried between Sig and a bleeding, husky Guard with a bandaged head and a limp, who nevertheless moved with admirable speed. Breaking glass tinkled sweetly overhead, and the Bocannon at his chest was a fiery cicatrice.

Shouts. Confusion. Mikal’s hoarse hissing battle cry. Queen Victrix screamed, a note of frustration and terror as mercenaries poured in through the side doors.

Clare lifted his head. He blinked, dazed. There was another giant impact, and he realised he’d been half- conscious for too long. They were surrounded, Mikal and Eli flanking the Queen, whose young face was pale, one cheek terribly bruised and her dark hair falling in ragged strands.

Miss Bannon looks much better dishevelled, he thought, and the illogical nature of the reflection shocked him far more than the queer swimming sensation all through his limbs.

Sig had a pistol from somewhere. He was grim and pale, covered in dust and soot, and his mouth pulled down at both corners. A jab of regret stabbed Clare’s chest. He should not have drawn his friend into this.

They were all about to die. Except possibly Victrix, whose face aged in a split second, Britannia resurfacing from wherever Her attention had been drawn, alert to the threat to Her vessel.

More shattering glass. The ground quaked violently, almost throwing Clare from his feet.

Then they descended.

The glass fell in sheets. The ancient roof of the Throne Room bucked, snapped, and fell, the shards – some as long as a man’s body – miraculously avoiding the knot of Guards, Shields, and mentath-and-genius. The sound was immense, titanic, the grinding of ice floes, as if the earth itself had gone mad and sought to rid itself of humanity.

The gryphon was massive, and black. Its eyes were holes of runnelling unholy red flame. Driven into the top of its sleek skull was a fiery red nail, a star of hurtful brilliance.

Perched on its back was a battered, wan, half-clothed Miss Bannon. Her dress had been ripped to tatters and her hair was an outrageous mess stiff with dirt, sticks, feathers, and matted blood. Bruising ran over every inch of flesh he could see, and the other shadows were more gryphons, breaking through the roof as Miss Bannon slid from the beast’s back. The red flame winked out, and the deadwinged beast slumped to the strewn floor. It twisted, shrivelling, dust racing through its feathers and eating at its glossy hide.

The dead gryphon collapsed. Miss Bannon bent, wrenching the nail from its head.

It was a knife, and it dripped with crackling red as she turned. The Prussian mob drew back, the feathers in their hats nodding as her gaze raked them, slow and terrible.

“Gryphons,” Britannia whispered, through the Queen’s mouth. The single word was horrifying, as cold and ageless as the Themis itself, a welter of power and command.

Miss Bannon nodded, once. She did not sway, her back iron-rigid, but something was wrong. She held herself oddly, and her gaze was terrifyingly blank. Clare groped to think of just what was amiss.

The sorceress looked … as if she had forgotten her very self.

“Who dies next?” she murmered, very clearly, the words dropping into a sudden rustling silence as gryphons drifted down to land, their claws digging into stone and fallen timber, making slight scratching noises against steel.