CHAPTER 56
Clay
For a time he lay stunned, vision clouded as he sought to refill his lungs, the ominous sound of fast-approaching wings loud in his ears until it was swallowed by the roar of engines. He blinked, vision clearing to reveal Lizanne staring at him from the hatchway of her aerostat. It hovered above, engines pointed towards the ground. He lifted a hand to wave in greeting but then a loud, ragged exhalation drew his gaze and he saw Lutharon lying some twenty yards away, wings flapping and tail coiling weakly. Clay tried to stand, found he couldn’t, and cursed as he reached for the product in his duster, drinking down a full flask of Green. Rising to his feet he half-stumbled to Lutharon’s side, letting out a groan of dismay at the sight of his injuries.
Ragged, deep gashes had been clawed into Lutharon’s hide, leaving his chest and belly a gory mess. Blood welled from a bite mark in his neck as he tried to raise his head towards Clay.
“Lie still, big fella,” Clay told him, smoothing a hand over the Black’s brow as he looked into his eyes. He could feel his pain and fear, and the gradually slowing beat of his heart. “It’s fine, we did all we could,” Clay said, exuding as much calmness as he could. “You don’t have to stay on my account. They’re waiting for you.”
He stood and watched the light fade from Lutharon’s eyes, knowing that in his dying Ethelynne would die with him, although the memory of both would live on as long as there were Black drakes to carry it.
He turned, hearing a change in the pitch of the aerostat’s engine, watching as it came to earth a short distance away. Lizanne emerged from the gondola and they stood regarding each other, apparently neither having any notion of what to say. Finally, she said, “Do you have any Green? I’m running short.”
“Yeah, I got another flask.”
He began to reach into his duster, then his gaze jerked back to the aerostat as the air became filled with the sound of roaring flames. The White reared up from beyond the curved bulk of the aerostat, flames jetting from its mouth to bathe the craft from end to end. Clay gaped in shock as Lizanne, instead of running clear, immediately leapt back inside. He dragged his satchel round, pulling out a grenade before reaching for his product once again. He gulped down some Black and focused his gaze on the White, now in the process of crouching amidst the smoke from the burning craft. Clay raised the grenade, summoning his Black in preparation then found himself in the air, the grenade flying away to explode harmlessly well wide of its target. He landed a good fifty yards from Lutharon’s body, the Green in his veins preventing serious injury, though he was obliged to spend several seconds lying stunned before managing to scramble to his feet.
“Gutter-born bastard!”
Catheline advanced through the grass towards him, weaving from side to side as if drunk, blood streaming through the fingers she had pressed to the wound in her stomach. Guess I’m a decent shot after all, Clay concluded. Much of Catheline’s golden hair had been burned away, leaving behind a seared and smoking scalp. Her skin was marble-white from loss of blood, but her red-black eyes glowed bright, lit with a vibrant hatred.
She screamed as she sent another wave of Black towards him, Clay leaping to the side with Green-assisted speed and replying with a burst of his own. It struck her squarely in the chest, sending her flat on her back. Clay leapt high, focusing his gaze on Catheline’s prone form, intending to expend all the remaining Black in crushing her into the ground until she was just a red smear on the earth.
The White’s tail slammed into his midriff, sending him spinning in the opposite direction. Had the tail still possessed its spear-point tip the blow would certainly have been fatal, instead of inflicting enough agonising pain to leave Clay stunned and helpless as he rolled to a halt. He heard the White’s claws scrape at the earth as it came closer, moving with unhurried intent. Looking up, Clay saw its head poised above, blackened and bleeding from his grenade but possessed of a gaze as knowing and full of malice as he remembered.
“Hate me as much as I hate you, huh?” Clay asked it in a pained grunt. “Guess that’s fair. It’s what we do, us folks, us people. Hate’s what’s worst about us, and grows worse with the hating. You were made to hate, because we made you.”
The White let out a faint huff of smoke, head tilting as if in consideration. Clay had no notion of whether it understood him, or even if it cared for anything beyond its own malice. But somehow he had given it pause, and that was all he needed.
“Got something for ya,” Clay said, “gonna make you hate me even more.”
He snapped his gaze to the side, focusing on Catheline. She had managed to get back on her feet and resumed her stumbling walk towards him, eyes glowing bright as ever. Clay used all his Black at once, unleashing it too fast for her to deflect or evade. In one swift motion he reached out to grasp her neck with an invisible hand and snap it.
The White let out a roar as Catheline’s body collapsed, rearing back from Clay, shaking its head in confusion. Clay fumbled for his satchel, clumsy hands trying and failing to grasp a grenade. By the time he had managed to drag one of the devices free of the satchel the White appeared to have recovered some of its senses, turning back to him and rearing up, a haze of heated air forming around its mouth. Then it stopped. The White stood frozen, the flames blossoming from its jaws but shooting into the air instead of at Clay. His gaze swivelled to the aerostat, now a smoking ruin, but standing in the foreground was Lizanne, staring fixedly at the White as she directed her Black at it. Slumped on her knees at Lizanne’s side was a young woman Clay didn’t know, but evidently also a Blood-blessed from the signature Black-fuelled focus with which she stared at the White.
Clay’s gaze swung back to the beast, seeing how it shook in the invisible chains that bound it, neck slowly coiling as it fought against its bonds, its head inching closer to the point where its still-blossoming flames could be brought to bear on its victim. Clay hooked a finger into the grenade’s ring and pulled, letting out a shout of pure agony when his broken digit lost purchase. Spitting curses he switched hands, sweat bathing his scalp as the heat bore down . . . then disappeared.
He looked up to see the White drowning in a dark wave. Lizanne’s black had faded and it thrashed and flamed in the tide that swamped it, biting and tearing as the wave swept over it, a wave of flesh rather than water. The White continued to fight, its tail and claws leaving dozens of Spoiled rent and dying, others blasted by flame or snapped in two by its jaws. But the weight of numbers proved unstoppable. The Spoiled tore at the White with their claws, stabbed it with their bayonets or hacked at it with their war-clubs. Blood and scraps of scaled flesh rose in a cloud as they bore the beast down, thousands of them crowding in to rend at the beast in a crimson fog. Clay was struck by the fury on their faces, lacking the blank purpose he had witnessed in Lizanne’s shared memories. The Spoiled, like the White, had learned to hate. Their destruction of the White took place in silence, free of shouts or screams of vengeance, the only sounds the wet tearing of the huge drake’s flesh and its last few, guttural breaths.
When it was over Clay found himself surrounded by Spoiled, all standing in immobile silence. He started to rise, finding it difficult and jerking in instinctive fear when the Spoiled helped him up. Looking around, he saw that most of them regarded him with curious, even expectant faces like an audience waiting for a speech. One of them soon worked her way through the throng towards him, a diminutive female with the blonde hair typical of Island folk. She addressed him in perfect Mandinorian with a slight managerial accent, her tone formal if a little guarded.
“On behalf of those present,” she said, “I offer our surrender. But we have conditions.”