The vision my father had given him was becoming keener. He had seen them before anyone else. Two little jewels, sparkling and twinkling in the distance. One glinted scarlet and the other flashed bluer than the sky.
Beloved lifted an arm and pointed. ‘Dragons!’ he called to our companions. ‘Heeby and Tintaglia, unless I am mistaken. Rapskal said they would come!
With a rattle of plumes, a crow suddenly settled on Per’s shoulder. I jumped back in alarm but he laughed joyously. She was a strange crow, with a silver beak, and instead of being black she had a glittering blue to her feathers, and several scarlet plumes in each wing. And not the red of a rooster’s feathers but shining, as if polished metal could be red. Per cried out, ‘Motley! I feared you drowned or arrow-shot! I am so glad you’re alive! Where were you?’
The bird bobbed her head as if in agreement. Then she spoke, her voice and inflection oddly human. She opened her wings. ‘I fly with the dragons!’ Full of satisfaction. Then she turned her bright eyes on me. ‘A way out is a way in!’
A shiver went up my back. ‘You came to my cell!’ I exclaimed. But she paid me no mind. She had turned her head to stare up at the sky.
‘IceFyre. IceFyre!’
I saw confusion cloud Per’s face but before I could wonder what the word meant I heard him. The black dragon came—not over the sea as the others did, but from inland. He announced himself with one roar. ‘IceFyre! I return, and I bring your death!’ Every driving beat of his powerful wings brought him closer; he grew ever larger until he seemed impossibly big. How could such a creature exist, let alone fly? But fly he did. And as he approached the castle, we heard only his wings. Then a cry burst from him, a sound so powerful that all of us covered our ears. But while we might hold out the sound of his roar, the sense of it imprinted itself in our minds.
‘Remember me, Clerres? Recall how you poisoned us with a feast of toxic cattle? Recall how you gathered to dance and sing, to welcome us to your treachery? Recall how you butchered my fellows as they lay dying? How when I fought you, you filled my mind with a curse? “Bury yourself in the ice!” Back then, I fled. You shamed me! You made me the last dragon in the world! But I shall not leave even one of you to recall how you all died this day!’
The blue took panicked flight from the tower, a jay rousted by a raven. The black dragon did not perch. He dived on the turret of one inner tower, hitting it with his talons and the full force of his weight and impetus. It fell, tumbling like a child’s blocks. I thought he would ride it down, but his great wings beat and he lifted again. High he rose and higher. The blue and the green dragons circled wide around him, no longer actively harrying the castle. They kept their distance, and I wondered if they feared they might become his meal.
Then he fell like a stone, straight down, and only in the final moment did he change his course with a shifting of his wings, driving himself against one of the skull towers. It was a sturdier thing than the graceful inner towers. Even so, it could not withstand the blow. The fearsome head tipped as if it had taken a monstrous slap. A shocking crack ran down the structure, and as the dragon clung to the skull, pushing and flapping, the crack opened wider. The skull overbalanced and IceFyre lifted away from it as it leaned ever so slowly and then fell. Even at our distance, the sound it made as it struck the earth was impressive.
From her perch on Per’s shoulder, the crow opened wide her wings. A string of enthusiastic caws burst from her throat. She bobbed her head and declared, ‘Dragons! My dragons!’
Per put his hands on her to prevent her from taking flight. ‘It’s too dangerous,’ he warned her.
‘My dragons!’ she insisted.
‘She has finally found a flock to join,’ he observed to me. ‘Her own kind always pecked her. But the dragons have taken her in.’
His eyes on the dragons and their destruction, Beloved asked, ‘If a flock of crows is a murder, what should we call a group of dragons?’
‘A catastrophe of dragons,’ someone said, with no humour in his deep voice.
‘Stay where you are!’ The outcry from one of our guardians jerked my attention back to the land end of the dock. A familiar figure stood there. My heart lifted for a moment and then I wondered. Friend or foe?
‘I have no weapon,’ Prilkop pointed out. I wasn’t sure of that. Two of the Whites we had freed from their cells stood behind him. They had recovered enough to be carrying a large bucket between them.
‘I’ve brought you water. And I offer you shelter in a friend’s home.’ He turned and gestured at the two Whites to bring the bucket forward. They exchanged a look and one shook his head vigorously. They set the bucket down and retreated farther down the dock. Prilkop stared after them. Then he walked ponderously back to the bucket, took it up and walked slowly toward us, the water sloshing over the brim at each step. We watched him come and all I could think of was the water. He clutched the bail of the bucket in both hands and it was splashing on his legs and feet. I suddenly saw that he was an old man, and not very strong any more.
Behind him in the town, people were leaving their homes, some scampering like frightened squirrels and others moving purposefully, pushing barrows and carrying large packs as they fled. Some of them had clearly understood what IceFyre was saying. I wondered if those who lived here knew tales of how the Servants had killed and driven off the dragons. Had they ever imagined such a vengeance?
Beloved walked past our glowering guardians, went over to Prilkop and took the pail. ‘Thank you, old friend,’ he said, and left Prilkop standing there as he brought the water back to us.
‘Are you sure it’s clean? Not poisoned? I heard that dragon say they were poisoners.’ This from the tattooed woman.
‘It’s not poisoned,’ Beloved assured them. He stooped and found a ladle in the bucket. He dippered up water and drank it. ‘It tastes fine. It’s even cool. Come and drink. Water for Boy-O first.’
We gave Boy-O three dippers of water and no one objected. I took one, even though they said I could have more. The guards had not given up their vigilance. I slipped closer to stand near them and hear what Prilkop was saying to Beloved.
‘They’re destroying it all,’ Prilkop called to Beloved. ‘What Bee began with her fire, they are finishing with acid and blows of their wings and tails. If they do not stop, Clerres Castle will be nothing but rubble. I come to beg you to call them back. Let us change this path, Beloved. Negotiate a peace for us. Help me return Clerres to what it should have been, what it once was.’
Beloved shook his head, and I do not think he was sad to refuse. ‘Easy enough to negotiate a peace with us. Allow us to leave on the first ship that will take us. That is all we ask. We have what we came for.’
Prilkop nodded. ‘The Stolen Child.’
In a flat voice, Beloved added, ‘We can do nothing about the dragons. Their vengeance is even older than mine. They will be thorough. And nothing will stop them.’