The Broken World (34 page)

‘Any news from home?' Dafydd asked.

‘Alas no. We have sent birds, but none has returned so far. I'm no adept, sire. None of us is. King Ballah sent all his best men to the front with your father and Tordu.'

‘I know. I'd try and contact them myself, but it's so far.' Perhaps when Iolwen is here, I'll be able to get my head straight. Maybe even use that throne to help. ‘I'd like to know what Beulah's up to, and for once that damned medic Usel's no help.'

They had reached the stone arch that opened on to the cloisters. Stepping into deep shade, Dafydd was distracted, thinking about how he could contact his grandfather and apprise the old king of how far he had come. He hoped his father's army would destroy Beulah's troops before they could reach Wrthol, then push them back through the pass and sweep on down to relieve the inevitable siege of Candlehall. If they could survive the winter, then there was every chance they might succeed in crushing Beulah between two armies. If they could survive the winter.

‘There can be only one true king. All pretenders must die!'

The shout cut through Dafydd's musings just an instant too late. He hadn't sensed their presence, but now there were half a dozen men surrounding him and Captain Pelod. Black-clad, they merged with the shadows even more perfectly than their clothing, seeming to flit from point to point without moving through the space in between. Dafydd couldn't even be sure there were six; it could just have been one moving with impossible speed.

‘Behind me, Dafydd!' Captain Pelod shouted the command at the same time as he conjured his puissant sword. ‘To me, men!'

Dafydd brought his own blade to life, all idle thought gone from his mind as he tried to assess the nature of the threat. They were hemmed in by the cloister on one side, but the courtyard was only a few paces away. Out in the
sunlight their attackers would lose their advantage. It was just a matter of getting there.

‘No man of the north will sit upon the throne!' A dark figure lunged at Dafydd, but the assassin held no obvious weapon. Momentarily confused, the prince was almost skewered by the stiletto that appeared at the last moment in his hand. Lurching back, he felt the blade tear the front of his tunic, and instinctively swept around with his own weapon. It caught only air, then sparked off the stone of a pillar. A few paces away, Captain Pelod was fending off an attack from at least two black-clad warriors.

‘In case it missed your notice, I've not even tried to take the throne.' Dafydd leaped forward and caught one of the men full on with his blade. The clothes folded in on themselves, tumbling to the floor empty. Only the faint smell of singed cloth showed that he had struck true at all.

‘Dafydd. Behind you.' Captain Pelod dispatched the other attacker with a swift upward swing of his blade, turning in the same instant and lunging past the prince, who was still staring in disbelief at the pile of rags at his feet. He turned just in time to see his old friend slam into a figure far more solid than the other two. They both hit the stone wall, but it was the captain who let out a grunt of surprise. And then his knees buckled and he was falling to the ground.

‘All false kings will die.' The black-clad figure held the same stiletto in his hand, only now it was red with blood, a single drop glistening on the tip.

Dafydd let out a low roar of anger, springing forward with his puissant sword held high. In the back of his mind he was aware of the approaching guards, but at that
moment all his attention was on the assassin. He could barely see the man's face, shrouded in black, but those eyes locked on to his own. Dafydd glanced briefly to the left and saw his attacker's eyes go the same way. Then as the man feinted right, he let his blade extinguish, conjuring it into life immediately in his other hand, and brought it up swiftly into the space where he knew it would connect.

It felt like his whole arm had been set on fire. Dafydd had learned from the best of his grandfather's palace guard and knew the dangers of conjuring the puissant sword. The consequences of losing control of that much concentrated Grym were too terrible to contemplate, and yet for a moment he thought his end had come. It was almost as if the assassin were forcing the fire back up through the sword and into him, but that wasn't possible, surely? He fell back on his training, instinctively raising his mental defences and concentrating his attention on his blade. The flow could only be outwards, the heat pushed away from him. Anything else was messing with his mind.

As his mental barriers hardened, Dafydd saw the scene for what it really was. There was just one attacker, but he had managed to take them both by surprise. His skill was in misdirection, turning his enemy against himself. Well, two could play at that game.

‘Who are you?' He threw out the question with a mental suggestion that he was truly curious, and at the same time took a step back. His old friend, Jarius, was lying very still at his feet, but Dafydd knew he couldn't afford the luxury of concern. Not now, in the heat of the battle.

‘Who I am is unimportant, usurper.' The assassin ducked
and weaved, but Dafydd could see through his subterfuge. The man was a poor sword fighter, too reliant on his magic. His body gave away his intentions all too clearly. One step, two, and then Dafydd swung his blade once more. It blazed in the shade of the cloister as it passed neatly through the man's neck. His head fell one way, his body the other, coming to rest against the cold stone.

‘Jarius!' Now there was time. Dafydd bent low to his old friend, feeling for any sign of life in him. Blood soaked the front of his robes, seeping into the flagstones where he had fallen as if the very fabric of the Neuadd was drinking his essence.

‘Jarius!' Captain Pelod's body was heavy, unmoving, his head lolling back and forth as Dafydd shook him. And then he sensed other life around him as the rest of the palace guard came running, surrounding him.

‘Your Highness. Please. We must move. There may be others.' Dafydd looked up into the concerned face of one of his sergeants and for that fleeting moment couldn't even remember his name.

‘We have to help him,' he said and clutched his friend close, knowing deep down that it was already way too late for that.

Benfro knew what he was going to see before he caught up with the hunting party. The smell was faint, but it was etched into his memory like no other. There were men nearby.

The dragons making up the party were circling above a rocky outcrop in the trees. A thin plume of smoke rose straight up, undisturbed until it was battered aside by the wash of wings. As he neared, Benfro could see past the trees to a wide clearing. It looked almost like an amphitheatre, with a flat slab of rock in the middle, angled slightly and carved with strange shapes. The smoke came from a series of small fires that burned around the stone, but there was no sign of whoever had lit them. He watched as Fflint, ever the first, landed in the clearing and strode up to the stone slab, sniffed at it, then kicked out at the nearest fire.

‘Where is the sacrifice?' Sparks flew about the clearing, embers scattering as Fflint's tail lashed out at another fire. One by one the other dragons landed, some inspecting the slab, others wandering about the circle as if anything the size of a man could hide there. It was plain to Benfro that there were no people there, and it was plain too that there was no way he would be able to land in such a small space with so many obstacles in his way. Not without colliding with someone. He set his wings into a tight turn and wheeled overhead, hoping no one would call him down. It wasn't long before Fflint took off, climbing up to him.

‘Can you see where they went?'

‘See where who went?' Benfro asked.

‘The sacrifice and whoever set it free. I got two fresh
scents before everyone else landed and stank the place out. Good call keeping up here. Or did you just not fancy your chances landing without ending up flat on your face?'

Benfro ignored the jibe. He was getting used to them now, as inevitable perhaps as his continued inability to master graceful landing unless he wasn't trying. ‘What is this sacrifice? I don't know what we're meant to be looking for.'

‘Men, Benfro of the Borrowed Wings. You know of men, I take it?'

Benfro hugged his damaged hand to his chest. It was growing slowly, still half the size it should have been, but at least it was there. ‘I've come across them from time to time,' he said.

‘Then you'll know they're not to be trusted. Simple-minded they might be, but they'll try and cheat you as soon as your back's turned.'

Simple-minded? Cheat? Benfro opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again. Finding out about where he was had been painfully slow, his questions rebuffed, joked away or just ignored until he had more or less given up asking. Within the fold and inside his own cave in the Twmp, he had found a certain peace and security. Enough that he had decided his best course of action was to heal, regain his strength and then renew his search for Gog, and maybe Errol too. He'd hardly thought about Errol at all recently, but this talk of men and the scent of them reminded him. No, that scent had reminded him. Different, yes. Mixed with too many other things, but Errol had been here.

‘Well I'm not putting up with it. They summoned us, and here we are. Time to show them what that really means.'

Before Benfro could say anything to that, Fflint peeled out of his slow circling and shot over the clearing, shouting to the few dragons who were still wandering about on the ground. The rest of the group had already taken to the sky once more and soon a mob of a dozen or more were in formation and heading out over the trees. Only Sir Gwair held back, and Cerys.

‘Where are they all going?' Benfro asked as he joined the two of them.

‘To the village.' Sir Gwair sighed as he spoke, the wind whipping the rest of his words away.

‘A village? Of men?' Benfro watched Fflint's group move further ahead.

‘What did you think? Deer?' Cerys flew so close she clipped the end of Benfro's wing with her own, sending a shock through him at the touch.

‘What are they going to do to them?'

‘The villagers make us a sacrifice every year. This one's early, but who can understand men, eh? Still, they've lit the fire and left us nothing, almost as if to mock us. Fflint's going to teach them a lesson.'

It wasn't hard to guess what that lesson would be. They were still following the larger group, Benfro noticed. Part of him wanted to speed up, to join them and mete out the revenge he'd been longing to take on all men since his mother's horrible execution. But another part of him knew the picture was not so simple any more. He had met good people, and he had met dragons far, far worse than
Inquisitor Melyn. It was the warrior priests he wanted revenge on, their leader in particular. The thought of killing anyone else just reminded him of the chaos of the King's Fair, the circus, the smell of fear and burning flesh. It sickened him.

‘Is there anything we can do?' he asked. ‘To stop them?'

Sir Gwair let out a short bark of mirthless laughter. ‘Who? Us? Look at us, Benfro. I'm too old, Cerys is too young, and you. Well, you're only half Fflint's size for one thing, and your hand isn't fully regrown yet. No, the best we can do is keep out of the way.'

The trees were thinning now, and Benfro could see rough fields marked out on the ground by low stone walls. Much smaller than those he had seen in Llanwennog and his dreamwalking to Candlehall, but they were a sign that the people here were organized. Was this village much like the one Errol had grown up in? he wondered. It seemed he was too late to find out.

Fflint and his cronies had arrived not that long before, but they had wasted no time in setting about the village. The people here lived in old stone houses, faded by the sun and neglect. The roofs were mostly flat, made from some material Benfro didn't recognize, and had openings, stairs leading up from the darkness below. Some had poles and lines, washing hanging to dry in the dusty breeze. It must have been very peaceful before Fflint and his dragons set to work.

They were ripping chunks from the roofs, flinging them into the narrow lane that ran between the houses before sweeping on to the next building. As Benfro drew nearer he could hear the screams, high-pitched like the
noise a deer made when you didn't kill it cleanly. Closer still and he could see the people running in all directions, panicked and terrified. He watched in horror as one of the dragons, Tormod or perhaps Torquil, they were so alike, swooped down low and grabbed a man by the shoulders. The man's scream of pain as talons pierced his chest was cut short when the dragon bit his head off, gulping it down as he flung the limp body away.

Benfro spotted a wide area of grass at the centre of the village, wheeled on a wing tip to lose height and executed a perfect landing. The other dragons were too possessed by their killing frenzy to notice. Most still attacked from the air, but some had landed as well and were forcing their way into the houses, shattering doors too small for their bulk. Screams cut short painted all too clearly a picture of what happened to any people they found inside.

‘You can't stop them, Benfro, not when they're like this.' Cerys had landed beside him, and he felt her hand on his shoulder, holding him back even before he realized he'd been heading for the nearest building.

‘These men. What have they done to deserve this?'

‘They called us here. They lit the fire to say the sacrifice was ready. You saw the same as the rest of us. There was nothing there.'

‘And for that Fflint's going to kill them all? Who'll give him his precious sacrifice if he does that? Who will provide you with beef and lamb if there's no one left to tend the herd?'

Cerys shook her head. ‘He's not like his father. Caradoc would have knocked down a house or two, maybe killed some of their animals. He'd have reminded them
that they live here with our permission. Fflint doesn't understand.'

Benfro pulled away from Cerys' restraint, strode across the green to the nearest house. The roof was half off, the door pulled out of its frame. He pushed his head through the opening, seeing the destruction that had been visited on the place. At least no one had been in here, he saw. There were no bodies, and the place didn't reek of blood and shit and fear as strongly as outside. A different scent lingered here. Older but horribly familiar.

He pushed his way into the room, using his good hand to lift the debris of the fallen roof away, sniffing the air to try and pinpoint what he sought. Behind him he could sense Cerys standing at the doorway, watching his every move. Well let her. Some things were more important.

And then he found it. A wooden chest lay smashed open in the far corner, clothes spilling out of it where a roof truss had crashed into its lid. Benfro pulled truss and lid aside impatiently, hooking the garments out with his talons and flinging them aside until he found what he was sure was in there, what he hoped was not.

He wasn't well versed in the different garments people wore, but Benfro had spent enough time with the circus to know that women dressed in the main differently to men. What he held now in his half-grown hand was a woman's dress, and he had seen it before. Ripped and bloodstained, it showed all too clearly the ill treatment it had received. The faint smell of smoke still clung to it like the mud around its hem, bringing the image of the burning circus, the panic and terror as warrior priests appeared out of nowhere to hack the people down. Like the
dragons wreaking mad havoc on this village for no good reason at all.

‘What is it?' Cerys had overcome her reluctance to enter the building and now stood beside him, staring at the dress.

‘My friend was here. He was wearing this.' Benfro handed her the dress, hurried out before she could say anything. Into the melee and hoping against hope that Errol hadn't fallen victim to it.

‘Tear it down. I want every single room checked.'

Prince Dafydd stood to one side as a team of Abervenn men hammered at an old oak door in a unexceptional corridor deep in the oldest part of the palace complex. They were supervised by his own palace guards, some of whom were even helping, but so far the door had resisted all attempts to open it.

‘Your Highness, perhaps I may be of assistance?'

Dafydd turned away from the noise of axes bouncing off wood like it was stone to see the medic Usel walking up the corridor as if he owned the place. Since the death of Captain Pelod, everyone else in their party travelled with company, never fewer than six to a group, but Usel always came and went as he pleased. There had been no more attacks on him or his men, no sightings of any more Guardians of the Throne. Still Dafydd wanted every room in the entire palace checked. Most had been, but this one door seemed reluctant to reveal its secrets.

‘If you have a key, then by all means.' He held out an arm, pointing towards the team still hard at work.

Usel merely smiled. ‘There is no key for this door, sire.
At least not one that would be of any use to you. Also your men could chop at it all day and all they would achieve is broken axes.'

‘How am I supposed to open it then?'

‘You cannot. Nor can any of your men hope to, unless they have something in their parentage they've done well to hide. Princess Iolwen on the other hand would be able to open it with just a touch.'

The mention of her name reminded Dafydd both that his wife should be arriving soon and that he would have the dreadful task of breaking the news to her about the attack. She had been as fond of Jarius as he was; they had all grown up together.

‘What's behind this door then? What's so important it has to be protected by so powerful a spell?'

‘Nothing short of the secret that has kept the House of Balwen in power for millennia. This door opens on to a passage that leads down under the Neuadd, and there the greatest treasures of the Twin Kingdoms are stored.' Usel had the faintest of smirks on his face, as if his enigmatic reply were somehow amusing him. Dafydd suppressed the urge to hit him; the man could be so infuriatingly smug at times, but he was also more helpful than not. Usually, at least. There was the small matter of the arrival of the princess too.