46
Of all the places in the palace, Tor had always considered the Hatchery to be the saddest. Even Hestillion, in her passion to keep things running as though the Eboran empire still lived, could not face the Hatchery, and the place had not been opened in at least a hundred years. It was a beautiful, long room, lined with windows on both sides so that the warm sunlight could gently heat the fruits of Ygseril, but the windows were blind with dust now, and the padded silk nests that had been built to house each of the silver pods were half rotted, the silk peeling away like old skin. In truth, Tor had felt embarrassed, particularly under the unnerving violet gaze of the dragon, Vostok. Looking at this room, you could not ignore the fact that Ebora had admitted defeat.
Nonetheless, it was all they had. One by one, he and Aldasair and the big man, Bern, had carried the pods in here, settling them into the musty silk nests. There had been fourteen in all, not including Vostok, but a number of them were small, and cold to the touch. This had been one of many things they had resolutely not spoken of as they set about their work – along with the return of the Jure’lia, where the queen had been exactly all these years, and what had happened to his sister.
It was the next day. The sky was overcast now, and the palace was inordinately quiet. Tor had grown used to the people on the lawns, the gentle noise that you barely noticed, and now most of them were gone. Aldasair had told him that some had left when the corpse moon had charged down out of the sky towards them – Tor could hardly blame them for that – although a few had remained, perhaps out of curiosity, perhaps out of the slightly desperate belief that Ebora could still protect them in some way. Or perhaps the newly birthed pods were a symbol of hope. Tor frowned and touched his fingers to the cut on his burned cheek. We can hardly protect ourselves.
‘This will be the next to hatch, I think.’
Aldasair was at one of the nests. He had a fine purple bruise on his cheek, and a lot of his confidence appeared to have ebbed away again, but he spoke quietly and firmly, with little of the absentness of the old days. The pod that he stood in front of was very large, the size of a small cart, and heat came off it in waves.
‘I think you are right,’ Tor squeezed his cousin’s shoulder. ‘We will be here when they are born, all of them. For what it’s worth.’
‘Vostok said – Vostok said that those that are dead should be given to her, to eat. To bolster her strength.’ Aldasair patted the surface of the pod lightly. ‘She said she can feel them growing, some of them, but that others are absent. They were just the start of something, unfinished.’
‘Is that what she said?’
Tor looked down the other end of the long room. The dragon who called herself Vostok was there, her great bulk curled around on itself, her long head lying on the thick carpet. Noon was there too, also sleeping, curled up against the dragon like a baby lamb with its mother. She had no fear of the dragon – had not been apart from it since the battle, in fact.
‘She also said . . . some other things.’ Aldasair straightened up, grimacing. ‘I think you should talk to her, Tormalin.’
Tor sighed. ‘I expect you’re right.’
‘You have questions, son of Ebora?’
There was no ignoring the summons in that voice. Tor turned away from the pod and walked down to the far end of the room. Noon had woken up too, and the look she gave him was uncannily like that of the dragon – piercing, confident. Certain.
‘More to the point, do you have answers?’ Tor paused, shaking his head. There was too much he needed to know. ‘The other war-beasts. Why have they not grown properly? What will happen to them?’
Vostok grunted, raising her head on its long serpentine neck so that it was on a level with Tor. Noon stood up and leaned against the dragon’s great bulky shoulders.
‘A short question with a long answer. My brothers and sisters and I, we are born from Ygseril, and we go back to Ygseril when we die. Our spirit returns to him, and eventually, our souls move up from the roots, through the trunk, and into his branches, where we are born again. When we are needed.’
Tor realised he was blushing slightly. ‘You have to understand. Ebora is not what it once was. The knowledge we had . . . it has died, with our people. You must forgive my ignorance.’
The dragon tipped her head slightly to one side; it did not matter.
‘The Eighth Rain. New war-beasts were born, and we went to do battle, as is our purpose. There were hundreds of us then, and we flew out across Sarn to drive the invaders back, as we always did. But this time, mistakes were made.’ Vostok’s eyes flashed, with anger or some other emotion, Tor could not tell. ‘The Jure’lia encroached deep into Eboran territory. They came here. The queen herself came here.’ Scaly lips peeled back to reveal shining teeth; there was no mistaking a sneer, thought Tor, even on a dragon’s face. ‘Ygseril took it upon himself to end the war. When the queen sank into his roots, seeking his power and knowledge, he let himself die, trapping her down there in the icy web of his own death. As long as he was dead, the queen could not escape. And she has always been the very heart of what the Jure’lia are. Without her, the Behemoths failed, and all her little creatures died.’
Noon caught Tor’s eye then. ‘When we see Vintage next, we’ll have to tell her this. Can you imagine the look on her face?’
She was smiling, just slightly, and Tor was filled with a terrible urge to kiss her, to take her to him and— he looked away. The blush hadn’t left his face.
‘Unfortunately, when Ygseril died, it left us stranded,’ Vostok continued. ‘We are as deeply connected to him as the queen is to her minions. We died too, yet this time, our souls were lost. With no comprehension of what we were, we wandered, unknowing things of light and sorrow. I . . .’
Vostok trailed off, and Noon carried on for her. It was impossible to miss the connection between them now.
‘They were the parasite spirits, Tor. All along, they were the souls of your war-beasts, cut adrift from their home. Their souls couldn’t return to Ygseril.’
‘Even we did not know what we were. All we had was a sense that the Behemoths were important somehow, dangerous, that we should be . . . near them. We felt a great loneliness, and a need to be within living flesh. Something we could never achieve.’
Tor felt his stomach lurch. That was why the spirits turned people inside out; they were seeking their physical bodies.
‘And this is important, son of Ebora,’ said Vostok. When the dragon spoke, her mouth hung open and the words were there, although Tor did not understand how – she had no human lips and tongue to form them. ‘I am here because Noon carried me back inside her. I know who I am and our history. These others, my brothers and sisters that remain alive in their pods. They will not have their true voices. They will not have their root-memories. In short, they will not be complete. It is important you understand this.’
Tor blinked. ‘Noon carried you back here? What do you mean?’
‘It was in Esiah’s compound, Tor.’ For the first time, Noon looked mildly uncomfortable. ‘When I absorbed the parasite spirit, that was Vostok. I took her inside me, and she has been with me since.’
Tor raised his eyebrows. ‘You didn’t think this was worth mentioning at the time?’
‘I don’t know if you remember, Tor, but you weren’t in much of a state for deep discussions.’ But she turned her head away as she said it, and Tor thought he wasn’t the only one feeling wrong-footed.
‘Hundreds of war-beasts flew to fight in the Eighth Rain, you said,’ Tor continued. ‘We have only fourteen. Fifteen, including you.’
‘You don’t even have that,’ Vostok’s tone was sour. ‘The newly revived Ygseril was far too weak to produce the pods that he did, but he did it anyway, out of desperation for his children. We were not ready. Rightly, we should have had days to gestate upon the tree, but we fell too early.’ Vostok shrugged, a strange movement that travelled down her entire body. Pearly scales caught the subdued light and winked like moonlight on water. ‘You are lucky that I live, and that I was present enough, thanks to Noon, to fight. The others . . . time will tell. If you have more luck, son of Ebora, they will live, and although they may not have their true voices, their root-memories, they will choose warriors to bond with, as I have. Then we may have a chance.’
‘You have bonded? Already?’
An uncomfortable silence pooled between them, Vostok and Noon both looking at him steadily. Eventually, he shook his head, half laughing.
‘I may not know enough about Eboran history, but I do know that no human has ever bonded to a war-beast . . .’
He trailed off. Noon tipped her head to one side, still looking at him, and he cleared his throat. Vostok chuckled.
‘Yes, it is unusual. Particularly as my kind has never had any love for the green witch fire . . . however, having lived inside it for a time, I see it anew. It is a fine weapon, of a sort. And son of Ebora, we can hardly afford to be choosey. How many of you live, now? Bearing in mind that your sister has left you.’
It was painful to hear that. ‘A few live. If we can throw the crimson flux off, there is a chance for us. Speaking of which, this must mean Ygseril lives?’
Now Vostok looked uncomfortable, turning her long head away. ‘He lingers,’ she said. ‘Being dead for so long, waiting with the poison of the Jure’lia suffusing his roots . . . it has left him greatly weakened.’
Tor took a slow breath against the thudding of his heart. ‘Then, the sap? Will he be able to produce it? Will my people be healed of the crimson flux?’ He felt a terrible urge to touch his scarred cheek, and fought it down with difficulty.
‘You must wait, son of Ebora. Ygseril fights – he fights to live. For now, it is taking all of his essence to sustain his link with us, his war-beasts, and as I said before, without that link, we are nothing. I cannot say if he will be able to heal Ebora. You will have a small and weakened force here, Tormalin the Oathless, and a terrible war is about to begin. You will have to fight.’
Aldasair’s shout echoed down the room, the excitement and anxiety impossible to miss.
‘It’s hatching! It’s coming, quickly now!’
Heedless of the dragon, Tor turned and ran back down the chamber. Aldasair was kneeling in front of the pod, his face flushed. The silvery surface was already breached, and behind a thick lacy membrane something alive was moving. Tor knelt next to him and together they began to break away pieces of the pod, scattering them to the floor. Vostok and Noon came up behind them.
‘Will this be another dragon?’ asked Noon as the pieces fell away. Tor glanced up at her, and saw the same anxious excitement on her face as he felt on his own.
Vostok rumbled a response. ‘I cannot say, child. We are all of us different.’
Be strong, thought Tor. The oily fluid inside the pod coated his hands and forearms now. The smell of it was a good thing, clean and sharp, like apples. Be strong, be a weapon for us to use in this war. Help us to survive, at least.
The lacy material split and a huge paw burst through, covered in wet grey fur and studded with four long black claws, wickedly curved like hooks. It landed on Tor’s hand, and a moment later a great blunt head forced its way through the hole – it was an enormous cat, eyes bright and yellow, like lamps, ears folded back against its head. It stared, it seemed to Tor, directly into his soul, and then the thing hissed, digging its claws into his arm. Tor yelped.
‘Looks like you’ve been chosen,’ said Noon, from behind him. He could hear the smile in her voice. ‘I would recommend leather gloves. Elbow-length ones.’
On the third day, they camped in the hills, some distance above the small seaside town. They had been there briefly, attempted to warn who they could, but what could you say, other than run? The people there had been disbelieving, and then they had seen it for themselves, rising like a bad moon over them. Vintage and Nanthema had fled with heavy hearts – the risen Behemoth had moved slowly in the first couple of days, still juddering and uncertain, but despite the gaping holes it still sported in its side, the thing appeared to have recovered some of its appetite.
Now Vintage poked their fire, her eyes returning again and again to what was left of the little town. In the purple light of dusk it was difficult to tell that it had ever been a town at all. Now it was a confusion of thick green varnish, a collection of broken buildings under it somewhere. The Jure’lia had moved on, but not before the Behemoth had birthed one of its terrible maggot-like creatures, a thing that consumed everything before it and excreted the viscous substance they called varnish. Vintage thought that she would never forget the sight of that hideous, wriggling thing being birthed from the side of the Behemoth. She thought it would probably haunt her dreams nightly, for however long she had left.
‘I never really thought I’d live to see the Ninth Rain,’ said Nanthema. She had made a rough sort of stew from their supplies and was pushing it around the bottom of her bowl. ‘I don’t think any of us did, really.’
Vintage felt the corners of her mouth turn up, against her will.
‘What is it?’
‘Oh, an Eboran friend of mine had a sword named the Ninth Rain. I wonder how he’s getting on.’
‘You had an Eboran friend besides me?’ Nanthema had injected a note of outrage into her voice, but Vintage didn’t feel much like laughing.
‘I think you’d like him. We have a lot to talk about, Nanthema.’
‘We do.’ The humour faded from the Eboran’s face, and for the first time she did look older. ‘I need to go home, don’t I?’
At that moment, the wind changed, and, carried on it, they heard a distant, eerie crying. At first Vintage thought it must be an animal, hurt in the forest somewhere, but the wind blew stronger and it became clearer. It was the sound of a great number of people crying out in horror and pain; another town, somewhere near, had discovered that the worm people were back.
‘Yes. But let’s not talk about it tonight.’ Vintage looked up at the sky, deepening towards night all the time. The stars were just coming out, a scattering of shining dust in the heavens, but she found them no comfort. The Jure’lia had returned, and she had lived to see a war that could end them all. Reaching across, she pulled a bottle of wine from her pack, and ferreted out a pair of tin cups. ‘Drink with me, my darling, and let’s keep the darkness at bay for one more night, at least.’