Chapter 9
WE EXIT THE FOREST IN THE direction Gideon gives us, continuing our walk across Canna’s sloping fields to reach the other side of the island.
‘The Swallow is on the move, armed with the best of the Coalition’s arsenal and the spirit of rebellion.’
My cheeks burn as I stare at Serena, who grins into her transmitter.
‘The battlefield is ever-changing – a war-torn capital one day and a sheet of ciphers the next. This is a war of languages and what are languages if not a secret code? Rest assured, people of Britannia, that every cipher has a weakness. And to the Swallow and the Bletchley Park recruits, Wyvernmire’s war is simply another code to be cracked.
’ She turns the microphone off and winks.
‘Spirits need uplifting, Featherswallow, and I’m hardly going to give you all the credit. ’
She stalks off towards the others.
‘I bet she was thrilled when Hollingsworth gave her that radio,’ I mutter.
Atlas glances at me. ‘Be gentle with her, Viv. She’s doing her best, despite everything.’
I frown. ‘Despite what?’
‘Her parents,’ Atlas says quietly. ‘Wyvernmire had them killed.’
I stop walking.
‘The Prime Minister will hurt the rebels any way she can,’ he says grimly.
I stare at Serena’s back. She failed her Examination and refused to marry the First Class man her parents found for her, so they sent her to Bletchley Park. She won’t even have had the chance to tell them goodbye.
A flock of tiny birds twist and twirl above our heads, basking in the last of the day’s light.
‘They come back every spring, but they’re late this year,’ I hear Gideon tell Marquis.
I see the birds’ forked tails and know what they are.
‘Only you could bring the swallows back,’ Atlas says softly.
My heart skips as he takes my hand, not to pull me out of the way of a dragon or a Guardian of Peace, but just because he wants to. We trail behind the others and my hand grows hot in his.
‘Can you believe we’re here?’ I say. ‘Chasing dragons together?’
He kisses me, his lips like warm silk. How many times did I dream of doing this again, back in the cold, dark sugar house?
I remember how his voice used to haunt my dreams, how my body ached to be held by him one last time.
I kiss him back, my arms encircling his neck as the swallows dive above us, and feel him tense.
‘What is it?’ I whisper.
He shakes his head, rubbing a hand across his face and giving me a weary smile. ‘Nothing.’
‘It’s the priesthood, isn’t it?’ I say. ‘It’s okay if you’re having doubts, Atlas. Back at Bletchley Park, when you said you weren’t sure about being a priest any more . . .’ My eyes drop to my boots. ‘People say all sorts of things when they’re on the brink of war.’
His hand cups my face and lifts my chin up. ‘I meant what I said.’ A flash of hesitation crosses his face. ‘But you’re right that it’s not a decision to take lightly. And I can’t be a priest and kiss you like I did back at Jasper’s camp.’
I blush at the memory. I’m sure he mentioned it to lighten the mood, but I don’t even try to force a smile.
I just got Atlas back and now something is threatening to take him away again.
Up ahead, the others have stopped walking.
Beyond them is a field, surrounded by green hills.
Gideon drops to the ground and I see what he’s hiding from.
Eight large dragons.
‘Oh,’ I breathe as Atlas goes still.
Marquis is frozen to the spot. He glances back at us, eyes wide with panic. There’s nothing but a tree between us and them.
‘Go back,’ I squeak. ‘Go—’
‘No,’ Atlas whispers. ‘They’ll see us.’
‘Then to that tree,’ I say, adrenaline tensing every muscle in my body.
I have to force myself not to run. The time it takes to cross the space left between us and the tree feels like an eternity. We reach the others and I press myself up against the trunk, breathing as quietly as I can.
‘What are they doing?’ Serena whispers.
There are three Western Drakes, two Sand Dragons, two Ddraig Gochs and a Silver Drake. We’re so close I can see the gleam of their scales in the bronze twilight.
‘Ignacia continues to hide away,’ the Silver Drake says in Wyrmerian. ‘Between ourselves, the rebels and the Bulgarians, we have burned London to the ground. And still she has not taken flight.’
He’s a young male, probably no more than fifty years old.
‘Her Majesty is biding her time,’ growls one of the Ddraig Gochs. ‘No alliance will be amenable to her.’
‘That is because she wants true peace,’ a Sand Dragon snarls. ‘And no one in this war can offer it to her.’
‘Not true,’ I say under my breath. ‘The rebels want peace.’
‘Not the kind she’s looking for,’ Gideon says.
I glance at him. I didn’t know he spoke Wyrmerian.
‘The Queen is reluctant to give up the secret privileges she has always enjoyed,’ says a scarred Western Drake in a husky voice. ‘She wants to keep her freedoms, her collusions, her feasting quota of human younglings.’
‘Then her peace does not extend to all,’ the Silver Drake says.
The two Ddraig Gochs let out bone-chilling roars.
‘Treason!’ one of them spits. ‘It was the humans that betrayed her Majesty, and now—’
A high-pitched screech pierces the air. It must be on high frequency because I am certain I feel it in my body, in my bones. An immense dragon appears in the sky above the treetops, as black as dragonsmoke. Behind it, Bolgoriths in shades of black and red fly in formation.
‘Goranov?’ Serena whispers.
A sheer, boundless horror is building in my chest. This dragon is bigger than Goranov. I shake my head. ‘Krasimir.’
Goranov’s brother circles above, flying around the field as the other dragons stare up at it. Rabbits flee past us in the long grass. Only when one of the British dragons lets out a warning bellow does Krasimir begin his descent.
‘Run!’
Every instinct in my body recoils with Gideon’s scream. I grow hot with panic as I turn towards his petrified face. He’s going to get us seen.
‘Run, run!’ he screams again.
He sprints out from behind the tree and in my shock I almost follow. The Bulgarian regal is gliding closer. Gideon is going to die. My legs buckle.
But Krasimir approaches calmly, drifting through the air on wings like black sails. Gideon has disappeared into the undergrowth before Goranov’s brother even attempts to land. Krasimir must have seen him. His lack of interest is chilling.
‘What’s that on his body?’ Marquis croaks.
I stare, transfixed. ‘Jewels. Bulgarian dragons wear . . .’
I trail off. What I’m looking at doesn’t resemble a jewel.
Krasimir is almost to the ground, and I can see it’s not a precious stone embedded in his chest. It’s something else.
I press my hand to my mouth. The scales on Krasimir’s chest have been sliced away and replaced with iron rings that hold the severed talon of a dragon and a human foot.
Swinging from another is a chain strung with pointed, yellow canines.
And several of his spikes are adorned with the empty poison pouches of Canna’s children.
Marquis sinks down next to me. ‘See those woods over there?’
I can’t tear my eyes from Krasimir, but I hear the anguish in my cousin’s voice.
‘Run towards them and don’t look back.’
But I can no longer control my limbs. I sway in front of the gruesome display as Krasimir extends his talons.
Flames erupt from the dragons’ mouths as they turn to face their attacker, but he doesn’t land.
Instead Krasimir swerves abruptly, re-angling so that he can strike from behind.
His fangs bite through the head of the Silver Drake.
It doesn’t even scream. The other dragons rise in retaliation, a terrible roaring filling the air.
Krasimir’s army stays at a distance as he turns to face them.
The two Sand Dragons attack, but the first is struck from the air with a crack by Krasimir’s tail.
The second jerks as Krasimir’s jaws close around its foreleg and dislocate its shoulder and as the other dragons advance, he ploughs through them as if they were as light as birds.
I turn to face the others, my movements sluggish like I’ve been drugged.
All the dragons are dead, but Krasimir doesn’t stop.
He turns, blood dripping from his mouth like some awful caricature monster, and lunges for a Bolgorith.
They fight for what feels like seconds until he snaps its neck, then advances on the others like a rabid dog.
‘He’s . . . he’s killing his own troops?’ Serena says.
‘Run,’ Atlas cries. ‘Now!’
I run, so terrified that my neck won’t turn so I can look over my shoulder. Krasimir could be just behind me, about to sink his talons into my back, but there’s no room in my mind to hold the thought. Everything in me is screaming at me to survive.
We find Gideon in a nearby graveyard, vomiting up the contents of his poison pouch. No one talks as we sit among the headstones beneath the trailing leaves of a weeping willow.
‘I heard rumours about him being insane,’ I say into the approaching dark.
‘It was like he couldn’t be stopped, once he’d tasted blood,’ Atlas says grimly.
‘I bet there are more like him,’ Marquis says. ‘There would have to be, to make the Bolgoriths capable of massacring their own humans. Perhaps they’re all insane.’
A knot of anxiety twists in my stomach. Even if we find the wyverns – even if I can communicate with them – how can they possibly defeat the Bolgoriths? And what will happen to Britannia if they don’t?
I stare around at the headstones and uneven mounds of earth where extra graves have been dug. They’re marked with shells or small rocks and one even has a soaking wet felt doll.
I glance at Gideon. ‘These look recent.’
He shrugs. ‘We used to bury the kids, for a time, when there was a body left to bury.’
‘We?’
‘The group I was with. But the deaths got too frequent, so we started burning them instead.’