Dragonoak: Gall and Wormwood, page 52
Unable to find my voice, I reached into the smoke to see if anyone needed my help. The first small mercy of the day was that the only the castle itself had been damaged. The cabinets lining the corridor were but splinters and the portraits were ripped to shreds, but no one was hurt. The high-pitched whine cut straight through my skull, making it impossible to focus my vision, and I reached blindly for the wall, dragging myself along.
Whatever was happening was unfolding beneath the castle. If I could reach one of the upper floors, I might’ve stood a chance at getting to Claire without being torn apart in the process.
If she was safe. Rylan knew where her chambers were, he knew where to plant the gunpowder and—
No. No. I couldn’t think like that. I had to keep moving.
Head spinning, I found a bannister and used both hands to pull myself up.
Someone grabbed my shoulder. My first instinct was to push them away, to knock them to the ground, but I could barely lift my head. Those same hands moved to my face, helping me look up, and there was Akela, speaking without any sound.
Focus. All I had to do was focus.
“Northwood! Northwood, you are safe, yes?” Akela’s voice eventually won out over the ringing in my skull. I swayed on the spot and nodded. “What is happening?”
“Katja,” I managed, shocked by my own words. It was as though the thundering blast had knocked the memory clean out of my skull and I was hearing her name for the first time. “Katja’s here. In the castle.”
“Katja? You are certain it is Katja you are seeing?”
It wasn’t that Akela didn’t believe me. She didn’t want it to be true.
I nodded. I didn’t shake, not again, because Akela was there. She wasn’t in the barracks, wasn’t on the other side of Thule. She was there with me, for me. If I stuck to her side, no harm would come to me. She’d never allow it.
“Then we are heading to my chambers. I am needing my axe,” Akela said. “Finally, I am getting a day that is all to myself, a day in this castle, and this is my reward! I am telling you now, Northwood, Rylan’s soldiers, at the end of this day, they are begging me for the chance to apologise. You are able to walk, yes?”
Akela gave me a firm nod to show her support. That was all the urging I needed. My legs were under my control once again, and I followed Akela up one staircase and then another, sound coming back to me in earnest as my feet pounded up each and every carpeted step.
I wished it hadn’t.
Bells continued to chime, but the sound only came from three corners of the castle. No more explosions rang out, and what had started as a confused panic turned to a series of shouts and screams.
Fighting between the two sides had already broken out on the lower levels.
Death drifted through the castle, more noxious than any smoke, waiting for a chance to strike.
“Kidira!” Akela called out as we burst into her chambers. “Kidira, now is not the time for the treatment to be silent.”
But save for Milly, clucking happily atop a pillow, there was no one in any of the rooms. Akela mulled over the collection of axes she’d decided to decorate her living quarters with, finding herself torn. The only thing for it was to take an axe in each hand. If there was armour anywhere in the chambers, she didn’t take the time to look for it.
“If you are wanting an axe, Northwood, I am letting you borrow this one,” she said, toeing a smaller blade. “I am knowing that this axe, it is not being giant, but I am thinking it is perfect for you.”
“I’ll be fine,” I said, holding up my hands. “I’d probably end up dropping it on my foot, anyway. Besides, I’ve got my knife.”
I pulled the dragon-bone knife from my back pocket and grinned.
Chuckling, Akela paused to pat Milly atop the head. She locked the chamber behind her and headed back to the lower level of the castle. The smoke had cleared, giving us a view of the wreckage left behind, and the shattered floor was the only thing stopping floods of Rylan’s soldiers marching down the corridor.
“Are you thinking we are making this jump?” Akela asked, already taking steps back in preparation of her run-up.
“If anyone can…” I said, and Akela had all the confidence she needed.
Her axes sliced the air as she sprinted down the corridor, pushing off the edge of the wreckage and landing heavily on the other side. She held her axes in the air and cheered for herself. She’d cleared the gap with ease. Without giving myself the chance to doubt my legs, I set off as fast as I could, jumped, and landed on the very edge of the gap.
I rocked backwards and Akela laughed at the ridiculous noise that left my throat. Clasping both axes in one hand, she grabbed my arm and tugged me to safety.
“That is putting some distance between us and Rylan’s soldiers. If they are not brave enough to come to the battlefield, then they are not brave enough to be making that jump. First, we are finding Ightham. After that, things, they are easy. Rylan, he is looking for her, and I am ready for him,” Akela said. “He is out of the way, and we are getting to the bottom of this.”
Akela’s plan only took us as far as the end of the corridor, where it split in two. A dozen footsteps alerted us to the sound of clattering armour, and Akela and I plastered ourselves against the wall, holding our breath as soldiers that weren’t our own marched deeper into the castle.
“My axes, they are not getting the chance to wake up yet. We are not heading that way,” Akela decided, eyes darting left and right as she searched for a new plan. “Northwood, we are—”
“Oi.”
One of the doors along the hallway swung open and Reis poked out their head.
“Captain!” Akela said, grinning. “Now we are getting somewhere.”
Reis had taken refuge in a music room. They weren’t alone. One of Rylan’s soldiers was on the floor, face bloody and bruised, wrists tied together with strings repurposed from the harp in the corner. Reis’ fists were in as bad a state as the soldier’s face, and Reis shook their hand as they headed towards her.
She flinched, teeth chattering in her skull. Akela leant against the piano next to her, arms folded across her chest. I did nothing to give the soldier the impression I was there to help her.
“I left Claire’s when that first explosion went up. Got a little side-tracked. Found this one on her own and managed to pick her off,” Reis said. “Doesn’t wanna talk much, though.”
“I-I already told you,” the soldier whimpered. She was Felheimish; she hadn’t been picked up in the territories. She’d been with Rylan all along. She could’ve been the soldier who’d greeted me at the foot of the mountains on my way to Kyrindval, for all the difference it’d make. “I don’t understand how King Rylan did that, I—”
“King Rylan? Gods, talk about taking it a bit far. He don’t get to crown himself just ‘cause he’s staged a break-in,” Reis said, tapping the pistol at their hip. “And I know how he did that. I ain’t stupid, lass. You got any idea how much of that stuff I got piled up myself, back in Canth? What I wanna know is, how many soldiers you got in here? How’d you get in?”
“Please,” the soldier said. “I was only following orders.”
“And what is it that is making you think that my friend, they are making requests?” Akela asked.
Sighing, Reis pulled the woman’s helm from her head and yanked her to her feet with a fistful of hair. They wrapped an arm around her throat and pulled their pistol from its holster, pressing it to the side of her head.
“You got any idea what’s at your temple?” Reis asked, and the soldier stopped squirming to shake her head. “This would be a pistol. It ain’t exactly complicated: I pull this trigger, there’s a bang, and the same thing that happened to the castle walls happens inside your skull. So I’ll ask again. How’d you get in?”
The woman twisted in Reis’ grasp to get further away from the weapon they understood well enough to fear, as if escaping Reis wouldn’t send her running straight into Akela’s axes. Reis gave her a moment to compose herself and pushed the pistol harder against her temple.
The woman relented with a yelp.
“K-King Rylan, he, he had people loyal to him in the castle. Soldiers, guards, servants. Even some of the nobility,” she said, swallowing the lump in her throat. “They’ve been planning this for months. With Agados, I think. Please, let me go. I was only following orders, I—”
“Aye. I know. Traitors in the castle. We always figured that was more the way of things than just a possibility,” Reis said. They pulled the pistol from the woman’s temple for half a second, letting her drown in hope and choke on fear. “Now. Numbers. I ain’t expecting you to know exactly, but any estimates you make are gonna be helping out the both of us.”
The woman whimpered and futilely looked between Akela and me, begging for help she was never going to get.
“His Majesty took a third of his forces north of Thule, before the battle. That was supposed to leave enough to take out your army, but when the rebels… it doesn’t matter. King Rylan will free the rest of our forces.”
With a grunt, Reis threw the soldier to the ground.
“Gods. Looks like that weren’t as much of a victory as we thought,” Reis said. “Where are you lot keeping the prisoners? In the barracks, weren’t it?”
“We are not having anywhere else to be keeping so many people. We are taking their armour, and because the rooms the weapons are once living in have bars, we are locking them in there.”
I knelt in front of the soldier, on the verge of healing her wounds. She flinched when I held out a hand, clinging to secrets in spite of all those she’d already spilt.
“How many Agadians are with you? How many more are coming?”
The woman had no interest in answering me. Reis stood over her, pistol in hand, and it was a different story altogether.
“We have more resources than Agadians,” she blurted out. “But once Ryan takes the castle, more are coming to help secure Felheim.”
Deep notes filled the air, accompanied by a crack of wood. Behind us, Akela had swung her axe clean through the piano she’d been leaning against. The splintered wood made the soldier whimper as though a twin wound had spread across her skin.
“What the bloody hell did I say about not wanting to get involved in all of this?” Reis muttered under their breath. “Looks like I ain’t got much choice. So much for taking a break.”
They only spoke to fill the silence and pull Akela from her warped thoughts.
“Agados,” Akela hissed, axes swinging at her sides as she marched over to the soldier. “Northwood, you are going all that way, telling them their deals, we are not having any part in them, and it is still coming to this? Why? Why is Rylan bringing them here?”
Akela didn’t have to raise her axes or make any threatening gestures. The soldier knew from her voice that none of this was to be taken lightly. She dug her heels into the carpet and skidded backwards along the floor until she hit a wall.
“Akela,” I said quietly, stepping to her side. “She can’t speak for Rylan. She’s only a foot soldier.”
Akela’s fingers wrapped around the hilt of one of her axes but she didn’t move. I crouched in front of the soldier, and with her attention fixed on Akela, she didn’t flinch when I reached for her face again. I washed away cuts and bruises and quietly said, “We’re going to leave you here, tied to the piano. You really, really shouldn’t try to escape. We’ll have Rylan’s forces out of here soon enough, and if you surrender, no one’s going to execute you. Do you understand?”
Shaking in the armour that hadn’t protected her, the soldier nodded her head. Reis grunted, thinking me too soft. The soldier willingly got to her feet when I took hold of her by the elbow and sat down in front of one of the piano legs. With Akela’s help, I managed to lift one side of the piano enough to slip the leg between the soldier’s back and bound wrists.
“Didn’t want any of this to happen,” she muttered. “But the King, he said…”
“I’m sure Rylan said a lot of things,” I told her.
On the other side of the room, Akela’s gaze burrowed into nothing.
“Right. None of this is much of a surprise,” Reis said. “They’re getting their gunpowder by way of Canth. That’s something for Yin Zhou to be paying more attention to. Maybe Asar ain’t ready for that yet. Again, not a surprise. Kouris told me that Rylan’s lot were getting crossbows from Agados, aye? Gods know what else they’re stockpiling there.”
Akela grunted and I wrapped my fingers around her wrist.
“What do we do now? What do we do first?” I asked.
I needed to pull her from the trance the mere mention of Agados always put her in.
Inhaling sharply, Akela pulled herself back to her senses.
“The barracks. If we are getting to them before Rylan is, we are stopping his army from growing,” she decided. “Rylan is having the advantage of planning, but we are having a dragon.”
“I already told the guards to send word to the barracks, saying we needed help. I don’t know how far they managed to get, though.”
“Now this is starting to sound like a plan,” Reis said. “If we can get past the bloody rabble out there. Ain’t gonna be easy. How about this: you get to stretch those arms of yours, Akela, I fire off a few rounds, and we make ourselves a nice little hole in the crowd for Rowan to get to Oak. How’s that?”
“It is sounding like exactly what I am needing,” Akela said, tapping the blades of her axes together. “You are always knowing how to cheer me up.”
Akela headed for the door and Reis grabbed hold of my arm when I tried to follow.
“You seen Eden?” they asked in a low voice.
“I’m sorry,” I said, shaking my head. “But she’s alright. She has to be. She can fight, and—”
“It’s fine,” Reis said, cutting me off. “Was wondering, is all.”
They headed over to the door, stuck their head into the corridor, and promptly retreated back into the room.
“Aye. Alright. We’ve got half a dozen of ‘em roaming up and down. They’ve given up any pretence of being on our side, meaning they reckon they’ve already won.”
Akela didn’t care for the details. She strode out of the door, barely giving Reis the chance to open it for her, and cut silent the shouts of soldiers in the corridor beyond. Reis and I followed close behind, watching Akela swing her axe in her left hand as deftly as the right. She didn’t have to sink her blade into most we passed; it was only a matter of time before we were outnumbered and she didn’t bother fighting her way through steel plating.
“Ugh,” Reis said, curling their upper lip and taking a shot at one of the soldiers trying to claw their way back to their feet.
The turmoil within the castle was unlike anything I’d witnessed in Canth. Rylan’s soldiers’ armour was similar enough to those under Akela’s command that our own guards were having difficulty telling who was an intruder and who wasn’t, and civilians were being rounded up in the corridors and forced into chambers. Bodies were already scattered around the castle, urging me to head every which way.
I was thankful we didn’t have far to go.
Oak had kept his distance so as not to frighten anyone, but the explosions had drawn him close. All we had to do was reach a window and he was there, lashing his tail out at any who approached him. The windows weren’t designed to be opened, but with all the damage that had been wrought throughout the castle, shattered glass wasn’t going to make much of a difference. Reis shot the closest window and Akela used her axe to clear the remaining shards of glass.
Oak stuck his head through the window, filling the corridor.
The soldiers chasing us quickly changed their minds and turned on their heels in favour of an easier target.
Oak growled, body trembling with a fear none of us were allowing ourselves to express, and I pressed myself to his snout, arms wrapped around him as far as they’d go.
“Alright, kid. This part’s all up to you,” Reis said.
“You aren’t coming with me?”
“Nah. Someone’s gotta hold down the fort. Gotta round up the others.”
“Ash, she is heading for the barracks. She is knowing to take your word,” Akela said. “We are needing to protect Ightham. To find Kidira, Atthis, Eden, Sen, Alex. Our friends from Canth.”
Reis grunted in agreement and placed a hand on the small of my back, easing me onto Oak’s.
“That first gunpowder keg hit close to Queen Nasrin’s chambers,” they said. “That lot had better be in one piece.”
“If they’re hurt—”
“They’ve got Kondo-Kana for that. Go on. Get out of here,” Reis said, patting the side of Oak’s face. “You’ve got this, alright? They ain’t gonna mess with you if you show ‘em your fangs.”
We didn’t leave a second too soon. Oak flung us into the air and Rylan’s soldiers charged at us by the dozen, finally equipped to take down a dragon. He beat his wings hard, soaring above the three remaining towers. The castle’s residents had escaped for nothing: Rylan’s soldiers surrounded the perimeter, stopping them from reaching the gates. Smoke billowed from distant parts of the castle and soldiers barricaded every door.
Thule knew something was wrong and riding a dragon overhead did nothing to help. Those who’d fled their homes, clinging to a freedom those in the castle no longer possessed, scattered as Oak’s shadow swept over the streets.
I didn’t have time to abate their fears and guide Oak higher, above cloud cover. It’d taken seconds for the castle to be infiltrated and I couldn’t afford to lose a moment. There was no stopping it, now that it’d started.
Ahead, the barracks were still ours. Soldiers – our soldiers, old and new – stood in formation, listening as Ash barked out orders. There was still a chance for us to fight back.
