‘Is that all?’ Risala looked up, her face smudged with dirt and her black hair tangled with leaves. ‘None of this is your blood?’ She pulled back and grimaced at the gore coating him.
Kheda drew her close again. ‘There was a savage in the cave, guarding the . . .’ He stumbled over the words. ‘The gems that the dragon had gathered. It had made some kind of egg, that was central to its magic somehow.’
‘Is it gone?’ Risala looked up, eyes wide and fearful. Kheda nodded. ‘Dev . . .’ He swallowed hard. ‘Dev destroyed it and it destroyed him.’
‘Oh.’ Risala rested her head against Kheda’s shoulder. He stood still, taking comfort from the warm solidity of her body against his. The careless song of the cascade was joined by a few hesitant chirps of birds seeking and offering reassurance, crookbeaks and chequered fowl and the extravagantly tailed glory-cocks. The zip and churn of the forest’s countless insects resonated softly through the underbrush once again.
This is life, this is reality. This is what I have been fighting for through all this nightmare of the unnatural and the impossible. This is what I want, for me and for Chazen.
The aches in his back and side reminded him of the price he had paid.
Let’s see the final balance settled.
‘Where’s Velindre?’ he asked at last.
‘Over there.’ Nestled in his arms, Risala didn’t stir.
Kheda waited, eyes closed, for a long moment. He sighed. ‘Come on.’
Risala reluctantly pulled herself free and, taking his hand, led him across the blackened scar sliced through the forest. Velindre lay curled like an infant in the shelter of an iron wood’s tall buttress roots. Like Risala, she was filthy from the detritus flung from the periphery of the whirlwind. Rips here and there in her tunic and trousers showed bruises darkening on the pale skin beneath. Her face was buried in her arms, hands clasped around her head, and she shook with silent sobs.
Kheda looked wonderingly at Risala, who could only shrug helplessly in reply. He knelt and laid a careful hand on the magewoman’s shoulder. ‘It’s all right, it’s gone, it’s dead. Where are you hurt? Are you bleeding?’
Velindre shook off his hand with a jerk of her shoulder and snarled something unintelligible into her arms. ‘Where are you hurt?’ Kheda repeated more forcefully.
‘I said I’m not hurt.’ Velindre startled him, pushing herself up from the ground to sit, loose-limbed in her soiled clothes. She scrubbed tears from her cheeks with the backs of her hands, leaving dirty smears across her face. ‘Yes, it’s gone but it’s not dead. Don’t ask any magic of me till it is.’ Her voice broke into fresh weeping.
Satisfied at least that she had no obviously life-threatening injuries, Kheda sat back on his heels. ‘The fire dragon, that’s dead, surely?’ he asked carefully.
Velindre nodded, striving for some composure with visible effort.
‘The cloud dragon, that still lives?’ Kheda tried to hide his apprehension. ‘But it cannot last? You said so. It will fade? In a few days?’
‘That’s right.’ Velindre just about had her tears under control now. ‘I brought it here and made it a murderer of its own kind and now it will just sicken and die.’ Her voice was thick with self-loathing. With no notion of any possible consolation to offer, Kheda got to his feet. ‘Then Chazen will finally be free of the creatures.’
‘Then we had better let Chazen know.’ Risala was looking down the shattered slope of the forest. ‘They need to know the beast is truly dead.’
‘And the sooner the better,’ Kheda agreed, joining her to stare at the mined carcass of the fire dragon. ‘Well, they can come and see it with their own eyes, if they feel the need.’
‘Let’s just hope no one sees that cloud dragon in the meantime,’ Risala said tensely
‘We don’t need that complication, not after all the trials we’ve been through to get this far,’ Kheda agreed heavily.
Velindre pushed past them both, tears still slowly running down her dirty face, intent on the massive corpse.
They picked their way carefully down the slope after her. Sudden doubt assailed Kheda as they grew closer. ‘It is dead, isn’t it? Truly dead?’ He gripped the sword he held tighter still and realised with a shock that it was Dev’s blade he had picked up from the cavern floor, not his own.
‘Yes,’ said Velindre tersely.
Kheda studied the dead dragon through the clouds of steam still wreathing it. It was immense, awesome even in death. Its injuries were appalling, seen close to. Splinters of ruby bone poked through the torn flesh of its ruined wings. Other lumps spoke of more broken bones, dark swelling spreading to force scales apart. Savage bites cut through skin and fat, muscle and sinew. Loops of crimson viscera bulged between the lips of a great rent in its golden belly.
‘It smells familiar somehow,’ Risala said with wonder. ‘How can that be?’
Kheda thought for a moment. ‘That bite of quenched fire, it’s like a swordsmith’s forge, isn’t it?’
‘What are you planning to do with it now?’ Velindre challenged.
‘Fire is the ultimate purification,’ Kheda began doubtfully. ‘I don’t like the idea of leaving it here to rot.’
‘You don’t think you can set fire to this, do you?’ The magewoman laughed without humour. ‘It won’t burn, you fool!’
Kheda didn’t answer, seeing the iridescent carapaces of can-ion beetles already hurrying through the leaf litter towards the monstrous corpse. He watched as one reached a black smear of the fallen dragon’s blood. The beetle waved its antennae briskly and accelerated along the glutinous trail.
You thought it would turn up its little legs and die, didn’t you? So the unthinking creatures of the forest will reduce this mighty tenor and spread its substance across this island, across this domain, if you don’t do something about it. Declaring this valley, this whole island, a place of ill omen isn’t going to suffice. But death changes everything, haven’t you always been told that? Is every mention of dragons fraught with ill luck?
He cast his mind back to the endless tomes he had studied during the interminable wait for Risala and Velindre. Dragon teeth and claws are mighty talismans in some poems, aren’t they?’ He looked at Risala. She nodded slowly. ‘And scales and anything made of its hide.’
‘Talismans?’ Velindre looked up from studying the rugged spike at the end of the dragon’s tail. ‘To protect you? That might just work, you know,’ she commented with sour interest. ‘It would certainly give any other true dragon flying this way pause for thought, when it got a sniff of such a powerful rival sliced to ribbons.’
She looked up at the sky, grimacing as she blinked away more tears. No dragon is going to want to meet whatever could do that. They’re not going to know it was all a sham.’
Kheda looked at the green-hued flies buzzing through the air to cluster around the edges of the dead dragon’s wounds.
So the insects are wiser than you. Spreading this creature’s substance through the domain could protect it. Death changes everything. What was once destruction is now a weapon in your hand, a defence.
‘Then let’s flay it and send some token to guard every village.’ Kheda looked dubiously at the mountain of reeking flesh rising before him.
‘That’ll be a long and filthy job,’ said Velindre savagely. ‘If you can find anyone brave enough to risk touching the creature, even now it’s dead.’
‘Then I’ll do it alone,’ Kheda shot back. ‘The blood and sweat and labour might even purify me. The stars above know I owe some mighty penance for bringing down magic on these islands in the first place.’ Even as he quailed at the prospect of such an undertaking, optimism rose in Kheda’s breast. ‘Do you suppose they’ll believe us, without coming to see this for themselves?’ Risala grinned unexpectedly, No one’s seen real dragonhide in time of memory. I think we’ll find people willing to come and lend a hand to win themselves a dragon scale of their very own.’
‘You’ll be keeping its heart for yourself, I take it?’ asked Velindre, an odd note in her voice. ‘I imagine such a ruby would be beyond price.’