He followed the direction of her finger. Iron rungs had been hammered into the stone of the spire. They appeared to rise up to the summit one hundred and sixty feet above their heads.
'Are you mad?' The simple act of looking up brought a rush of vertigo. If he attempted to climb, he would be blown off in an instant. Besides, it led nowhere. The Blues could afford to wait until they fell, froze or climbed down. 'Or are you looking for some spectacular way to commit suicide? Personally, I'd-'
She took his hand. The sounds of pursuit could now easily be heard through the door. 'Just trust me,' she said.
He looked into her eyes, which were wide and honest, and he surprised himself by realising that he did trust her, more than himself. Cursing, he turned and gripped the first icy iron rung and hauled himself up.
Ten feet up and it took all Mallory's strength just to hang on. The wind attacked like a wild animal, throwing him from side to side. He had to hook his arms inside the rungs to prevent himself from being thrown off the spire. He feared for Sophie, who was physically weaker than him, but though he sensed she was close behind, the stinging blizzard prevented him from looking down long enough to see her.
The crash of the door swinging open, though, came loud enough to rise above the gale. The bark of their pursuers was angry and disbelieving, and he could just make out a furious debate about what should be done.
'Keep going,' Sophie called up to him.
Mallory felt delirious. The weakness from his incarceration and lack of food combined with his incomprehension to make his head spin. If he kept his eyes fixed on the dwindling stone column in front of him, he was OK. But the snow made the landscape bright and his eyes would repeatedly be drawn to the white roofs and rolling hills, and then down, down, down to the cathedral compound a dizzying fall below.
It was just as his stomach turned at the contemplation of the drop that a particularly strong gust of wind tore over the peaks and troughs of the new buildings and wrenched at his legs. They were ripped away from the security of the rungs, flying out horizontally away from the spire. The shock tore the breath from his throat. He yelled out, tried to grip on to the rungs, but he couldn't feel his numb fingers, couldn't tell if they were holding or slipping.
He heard Sophie scream, then saw his knuckles sliding over the edge of the rung. The wind tugged harder; the snow lashed his face. He felt the fall before it happened, experienced the air being sucked from his lungs, that final shattering impact, his body exploding at every joint…
An eddying gust whipped around the spire and caught his legs just as his fingers were about to let go, slamming him back against the hard stone. Winded, he lost his grip completely and slid down the spire, almost knocking Sophie from her handhold. Somehow he caught on to a rung, yanking himself to a sudden stop, wrenching his shoulder.
He clung there for a second, his heart pounding so hard it felt as if it was going to burst from his chest. But the wind didn't relent and the sounds of the knights below didn't fade; he couldn't rest. With small gusts pulling him to one side, then the other, he continued to climb.
Below, he could occasionally catch the sound of Sophie talking, but he couldn't make out what she was saying. Fifteen minutes later, the rungs ran out: the end of his journey, and probably the end of his life. The spire was now just a couple of hand-spans wide and he could feel it moving in the now unbearable wind, adding to the sickening vertiginous pull. He felt unconscionably weary, didn't have the energy to climb down even if he'd wanted to; he could have put his arms around the spire and hugged it until the end came. Just above his head, the cross on the very top appeared to glow.
Exhausted, he rested his head against the stone, sliding back and forth. His whole body was numb, yet strangely starting to grow warm. He couldn't feel any of it; it was just as if he was enveloped in steam.
Something whizzed past his ear, jerking him alert. A shower of dust fell against his face: a chunk of stone had been dislodged.
As he struggled to work out what was happening, something else whipped past him. This time he saw it: a crossbow bolt. The knights were firing at diem, trying to dislodge them. The bastards! he thought. They couldn't even wait for me to freeze and fall.
'Are you OK?' he yelled out, realising at the same time how stupid it sounded. Sophie's response was lost to the wind.
And then there was only the view, the pristine whiteness of the hills, beautiful in their simplicity. He began to fantasise that he could fly, that he could just kick off from the spire, soar out over them and keep going to a place where there was no hardship and he could spend the rest of his days in idyllic bliss with Sophie.
Movement caught his attention away over the hills. It became lost to the stinging snow for a while before he caught it again. A cloud, he thought, caught in the rolling wind. It continued to move, free of the subtie undulations of the elements. With purpose.
Something was moving inside the storm. Drawing closer.
He was mesmerised. It was natural, yet not natural, dark behind the snow. Another crossbow bolt rattied against the stone. How long before one hit him?
'It's coming!' Sophie yelled. Jubilation sounded in her voice, but a hint of fear, too.
A burst of colour in the black and white world. He was back in that moment that would haunt him for all eternity. But no, no… Now he knew what it was. Yet it made no sense: it was dead. More fire exploded in an arc, so brilliant that it lit the rooftops red and orange and yellow. The shadow so big now, beating slowly up and down. Enormous wings riding the night winds.
'We killed it,' he whispered into the howling gale. But all he could feel was wonder surging up inside him like a golden light, a sense of connection with all Existence.
'Stay with me, Mallory!' Sophie ordered. There was an insistence to her voice. Did she know something he didn't?
The Fabulous Beast soared on the turbulent currents, up and down and then to the side, gouts of flame erupting from its mouth at regular intervals like the birthing of stars in the bleak void. Mallory was transfixed. As it neared, he could see that it was not the one they had slain. Something about it appeared younger, sleeker, the emerald, ruby and sapphire sparkling of its scales more pronounced.
It came directly towards the spire. The beating of its wings was deafening, like the wind in the sails of a mighty ship, and the conflagration of its breath was like the roar of a jet. Mallory could see its eyes gleaming a fiery red, and for an instant he thought he saw something there: an intelligence, certainly, but also a contact, an understanding.
He thought, It's going to get its revenge for the death of the other one. It's going to wipe the whole of the cathedral from the face of the earth. A purifying flame.
Languidly, it began to circle the spire. Mallory was on a level with it, and at times he thought he could just reach out and touch it, feel the roughness of the bony protuberances on its head and spine, the hard sheen of the scales; he felt as though he could walk across the air to it.
'Mallory!' Sophie yelled.
He jolted alert. From far below he could hear the panicked cries of the knights. They were calling for support, but found time to loose another bolt. It missed Mallory's temple by a fraction.
The Fabulous Beast went down, rose up, went down again, then turned and soared towards die cathedral.
This is it, Mallory thought.
It passed beneath him. The flame gushed out in a torrent, painting the roof far below a hellish red. In its illumination, Mallory saw everything clearly. Two of the knights dived back inside for cover. The other remained rooted in terror. The fire hit him full force. It drove him off the tiny landing, and as he fell he burned only briefly before the fury of it consumed him and he turned to dust, sprinkling with the snow.
The other knights were out in an instant, one firing at the Fabulous Beast which had returned to its circling, the other, bizarrely, shooting once more at the two of them.
How they must hate us, Mallory thought.
'Get ready, Mallory!' Sophie shouted.
He had no idea what she meant, didn't have time to consider it. The bolt hit his shoulder as if he had been smashed with a mallet. Pain drove through his arm and side. Everything went with that — his sense, his grip — and then he was falling, turning slowly, seeing Sophie's desperate, loving face, seeing the snow, going down with it.
He hit hard, though he had only fallen for an instant, and then he was being swept sideways. Desperately, his
