The Golden Cage (42 page)

Errol
reached out with his aura, stretching it to meet the cord close to its source and tying it tight. Almost instantly the line faded from red back to palest pink and Benfro let out a low moan, slumping further to the icy ground. Errol could feel Magog now, pushing and questing, testing the Grym, searching for a way around the blockage. The power and subtlety were daunting, but Errol knew Magog's evil power would not be able to touch him. At least he hoped so.

Now all he had to do was save Benfro.

The dragon was far too big for Errol to envelop entirely in his aura. He wasn't sure that he could do much at all while concentrating on holding Magog at bay. Still, he had to try, so he reached out as best he could, wrapping Benfro's upper body and arms as if he were covering him with a vast cloak. Errol felt strange, like he was made of toffee and someone was stretching him out of shape. It wasn't painful in any conventional way, but it ached with wrongness the further he pulled his own aura away from himself. When he had gone about as far as he could without collapsing, Errol imagined the Grym flowing into the space he had created, filling it with the same warmth that made his skin slick with sweat.

It felt like he was running uphill with a bag full of rocks on his back, and at the same time it was as if he were doing nothing at all. Errol could feel the power of the Grym coursing through him so much that he should have burned himself to a crisp if the teachings of the quaisters at Emmass Fawr were not exaggerations. And yet if anything he began to feel the cold around him more. It seeped in at the points where his aura was strained thin, like a
winter wind finding the seams in an old jacket. A thought began to form in his mind as to how the Grym worked, but it was interrupted by another long groan from Benfro.

Slowly the dragon rolled over on to his side, head still drooping. Errol pushed a little more of the Grym into his outstretched aura, feeling the strain in his mind like nothing he had ever known before. Then his own knees gave up without warning and he crumpled to the ground, his aura snapping back close around him. He sat there, confused and exhausted, staring as Benfro first pushed himself upright, then shivered in the renewed cold and finally opened his large eyes.

‘It's
nice to get off that barge. I was beginning to think I'd forgotten how to ride.'

Beulah kicked her horse lightly, spurring it into a trot. Clun, less skilled in the saddle, took a while to catch up. They were riding the pair he had bought for her at Beylinstown down a long straight tree-lined road that ran parallel to the River Hafren. At this point the river was at least two hundred paces wide, deep and swift-flowing. Had they stayed on the barge, they would have been in Castell Glas already, but Beulah didn't like the idea of entering one of her cities like so much freight. The bulk of her entourage had been sent on ahead, including the fine Gomoran stallion she had bought for Clun, which no one dared go near. Now she and her consort rode at the head of a small troop of warrior priests.

‘Lord Beylin certainly has opulent tastes, my lady. And yet he spends little time enjoying his luxuries.'

‘You'd noticed that too?' Beulah nudged her horse into a slow canter, relishing the feel of the wind in her hair and the smooth ride of a well-bred beast beneath her. This time Clun must have anticipated her; that or his horse didn't want to lose its companion. They rode abreast on the wide road.

‘I'm used to rising with the first light, but I don't think I ever entered his hall when he wasn't already there, discussing some deal or other with the local merchants.'

‘He works hard, and he's a clever man. I could do with more nobles of his calibre. Alas, most of them are like old Queln of Corris. Or worse.'

‘Worse, my lady?'

‘You
never met Angor, your predecessor at Abervenn. Unless you saw his head on a pike at the Ffrydd Gate.'

Clun said nothing, but Beulah could see his hands tense on his reins. His horse sensed his unease and stumbled ever so slightly, making him lurch forward and grab at the creature's flowing mane. She chuckled under her breath, enjoying the sense of superiority her riding skills gave her.

‘Relax your hands on the reins a bit. Use your thighs to control the beast, not the bridle.' She let go her reins, squeezed her legs just so, and her own horse dropped to a trot again. Clun pulled back like a novice, his feet pressing forward in his stirrups, reins held high. Beulah laughed again.

‘My love, you can ride better than that.'

‘True, but this horse has its own mind, unlike the old beast they gave me at the monastery.'

‘Well, we'll have to work on your skills if you're ever to master that stallion.'

‘I thought the whole point of Gomoran horses was that they couldn't be broken.'

‘Any beast can be broken. You've just got to find the way. You'll not tame a wild creature like that with ropes and whips, mind. You've got to treat it like your equal.'

‘My equal, is it? It'll be a long time before I'm halfway there.'

Beulah's reply was interrupted by the arrival of Captain Celtin, who overtook her at a canter, his warrior priests surrounding both of them in a swift well-drilled manoeuvre.

‘Your Majesty, we have company. Riders coming fast.'

Beulah
looked ahead down the arrow-straight road, and sure enough a great cloud of dust rose from the ground. At the base of it she could make out the forms of mounted men.

‘Hostile or friendly?' Clun moved his horse close to Beulah's and they all stopped. With the river to one side and fields tall with corn to the other, there was not much they could do but flee the way they had come or fight.

‘I'm not sure, Your Grace,' Celtin said. ‘Though I'd hazard a guess at the latter. I'll go and find out what they want.'

The warrior priests parted to let him through, then resumed their guard around the queen. Beulah watched, annoyed that her afternoon ride had been ruined, as the captain rode some distance towards the approaching group and halted. About half a thousand paces away, just as the noise of approaching hooves was beginning to rise above the rustle of the wind in the trees, all but two of the approaching riders stopped. Celtin waited for them; there was a brief conversation, then he turned, trotting back to his queen with the two riders behind him. As they drew near, Beulah saw that one wore the uniform of a captain, his tunic bearing the arms of Castell Glas. The other man was a herald, his tabard a blaze of colours. Both stopped a good twenty paces away, dismounted and knelt on the road. Celtin rode slowly forward to the line his warrior priests still held.

‘An honour guard from His Grace Duke Glas,' he said. ‘And a messenger too, ma'am.'

Beulah walked her horse forward through a gap between the warrior priests that appeared without
command. The two messengers remained kneeling at her approach.

‘Rise, gentlemen. You are sent by Duke Glas. Why is it he feels unable to come and greet me himself?'

‘Your Majesty, His Grace would have liked nothing more than to have escorted you all the way from Beylinstown, but he has sustained a grievous injury and is currently confined to bed by his surgeon.' It was the herald who spoke, continuing before Beulah could question him, ‘He has sent his most experienced men to safeguard your passage into the city.'

‘And does he not think his roads safe enough for his queen to travel unguarded?'

‘Had you travelled them just a moon's phase ago, ma'am, then the answer would have been yes, though he would have wished to offer you his protection anyway. But these past weeks our lands have been harried by a great flying wyrm. Our cattle have been slaughtered, crops destroyed.'

Beulah felt a chill in her heart. Was it possible that Melyn had not succeeded in tracking down and killing the beast? The inquisitor had not contacted Clun since the day he had ridden north into the forest, though she hadn't truly expected that he would until he reached Llanwennog. That would not be for at least a week yet, but the dragon should have been slain over a month ago. So what was it doing down here in the Hendry?

‘Have you seen this creature?' Beulah addressed the question to both men. The herald shook his head.

‘No, ma'am. I've not, though I have seen the destruction it has wrought. Captain Tole here has, though.'

‘Describe
it to me.'

The captain took his time replying, as if he needed to gather his memories. Or maybe he was simply in awe of his queen.

‘It was big, Your Majesty. As big as a house, mebbe bigger, but I don't need to describe it; you can see it fer yerself.'

‘I can what?'

‘Tha's how His Grace was injured, y'see, ma'am. We cornered the beast in the swamps to the south. Hunted it down.'

‘It's dead?'

‘No, ma'am. Better'n that. We captured it. Well, Duke Glas did. It's in chains in the city waitin' fer you.'

‘Have we got a head count yet, Captain?' Melyn walked among his men, camped in the long grass a good distance up the valley from the great barrier that had separated them from the magic storm. Melyn had decided that a day's rest was in order; they needed to reorganize and redistribute their provisions, as well as tend to the injured men and horses.

‘Most have reported back now, Inquisitor. So far we've lost twenty men and three dozen horses.'

‘Twenty men, by the Shepherd, is that all?' Melyn scanned the camp. ‘I thought we'd lost at least a hundred.'

‘No, sir. Most got through before …' Osgal trailed off as if he didn't want to think too hard about what had happened. Melyn dismissed him with a wave of his hand, noticing for the first time the blisters on his own palm. He
felt no pain, in fact felt nothing at all, but as he looked at the mess of red shiny flesh, a wave of nausea swept over him and his knees started to buckle. A steady hand caught him.

‘Delayed shock, Your Grace. Perhaps you'd better sit down somewhere.'

Melyn looked around to see Frecknock just behind him. Her support should have angered him – she was too familiar – and yet he couldn't muster the energy to punish her. Had her constant presence over these long weeks on the road, their shared adventures, so inured him to her presence?

‘It's nothing.' He pulled away from her. Nearby several troops of warrior priests clustered around their fires or tended their horses, but none of them paid either him or the dragon any heed.

‘It's not nothing, Your Grace. You've serious burns to your hand. If you don't do something about them, and soon, then you'll lose it.'

‘Why are my men ignoring me? They should have cut you down for laying a finger on me.'

‘They can't see you, sir. I've hidden us both.'

‘You've what? How dare you?'

‘I thought it would be bad for morale, after what your warrior priests have just been through, for them to see their inquisitor collapse.'

‘Why would you care?'

‘I swore a blood oath. I am bound to that until one of us dies. As long as I'm useful to you, that time may yet be some way off. If I don't help you, then you'll just kill me. I want to stay alive, Inquisitor Melyn. I can't embrace my
death calmly like the others. They'd lived for centuries, made peace with Gwlad and settled down. If you hadn't killed them, they would all have faded away soon enough. But I'm still young; I've not been given the choice they all took.'

Her logic was as cold as his own. Meanwhile Melyn was not so stupid as to ignore her obvious power, and the fact that she seemed willing to do his bidding opened up all manner of possibilities.

‘This enchantment that makes me invisible to my men. This is the same spell that you use to hide yourself?'

‘It's similar, yes.'

‘Show me how it's done.'

‘Of course, Your Grace. But first you need to heal that hand. May I?' Frecknock held out her own hand. For the first time he noticed that the palm was not the thick leathery skin he had thought, but hundreds of tiny flexible scales that rippled as she moved her fingers. Not quite knowing why he did it, he let her take his injured hand.

Her touch was gentle, but even so it brought an explosion of pain that tensed his muscles. Then she muttered something under her breath and the pain vanished. Holding his palm open, she waved her free hand back and forth in the air above it, still mouthing those strangely soothing words. He felt a tingling warmth in his fingers, not unpleasant so much as mildly irritating, like a faint itch that won't respond to scratching, and a somehow disturbing sensation ran over his skin, rippling it like water pulled by a light breeze. The tightness in his knuckles eased, letting his fingers flex properly for the first time in weeks. Looking down, he saw the blisters dissolve in front of his
eyes, as if his hand were absorbing them, healing with a speed far faster than even his skill at magic could have managed.

Finally Frecknock stopped her murmuring and let go of his hand. Her release was like a huge disappointment. He almost reached out to touch her again, but at the last moment he stopped himself, instead lifting his hand to his face the better to inspect her working. There was no sign of the burns and no lingering pain. If anything his hand felt better, freer than before, no longer cramped by long hours clutching his reins.

‘You still need to rest, Your Grace. I can heal your hand, but I can't do anything about the shock. That will take time to pass.'

Melyn wondered what she was talking about. Then he realized that his knees were damp. Looking down, he saw that he had sunk to the grass. Or had she lowered him? He couldn't be sure, and that bothered him more than anything else. Slowly he hauled himself back on to unsteady feet, turned to look for his campfire, saw it at least a hundred paces away and suddenly felt very old.

‘May I help you once more?' Frecknock asked, holding out her hand to give him support. Melyn looked at it, then at the dragon's face.

‘No. I can get there on my own. And I don't need you to hide me any more.' He felt the air ripple around him as she dropped whatever enchantment it was she had worked.